DFM bloodletting continues

These two guys were very, very VERY good. And did it all, tweeting, writing, video.. this is just terrible.

 

My understanding of the coverage zone of LANG is that it consists of San Bernardino, Riverside, Orange and large parts of LA County (San Fernando Valley and South Bay). So the population of their coverage area is around 10 million.

Sodenheimer is at the LA Times so it appears that LANG has no prep writers left. Will LANG have beat writers for the county governments, all of whom have at least two million residents in the coverage area. Will they staff any city halls?

 

The two mainstays of OCR preps -- Steve Fryer and Dan Albano -- are still there. They focus on Mater Dei and whatever team it is playing. It is hit and miss on the rest. They use several stringers. Fryer and Albano are top-notch newsmen ....... with about 100 schools in O.C.

 

I don't know anything abut the particulars of the lawsuit. But I think that the death of the dead tree edition will be the inability to find cheap home delivery personnel. I delivered the Denver Post from 1971-1973 and there were four routes in my subdivision. Penetration was about 60-65%. So adjusted for inflation the delivery boys $400-450 a month.

I think the circulation of the Post is now generously, 150,000. Which means metro penetration is about 15%. So my neighborhood, which had 400 plus subscribers, has maybe 100 now. That is to big an area for a kid on a bike so now it is left to adults. Even if you pay $10 a paper for delivery those guys would only get $1,000 a month, less auto expenses, for working a couple hours every morning. As circulation continues to decline as the subscribers literally die the delivery guys make less or routes areas continue to expand which means the delivery guys have to work longer hours and pay more for gas. At some point the papers will not be able to find anyone.

 

So true.
Recently, there were ads in the OCR seeking delivery people for the Riverside paper. Work two or three hours a day, seven days a week, from 2:30 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. WOW, WHAT AN OPPORTUNITY. Must have your own truck, drivers license, insurance, etc. The potential pool of employees is actually a mud puddle.
A few years ago, if I felt an economic pinch, I actually thought about it. Working the night desk until 1 or so, check email, SJ and other websites, go down to the loading dock and add another 3 hours to my work day. Fortunately, I never got that financially destitute.

 

The worsening conditions/economics of hiring drivers to deliver papers is made worse by the boom-town economy in our area. You can make much better money with much better hours at other businesses that always seem to be hiring.

Plus ... and this would be the biggest newspaper delivery driving negative for me ... in other jobs, you can ACTUALLY TAKE A DAY OFF without having to move mountains.

 

I took a buyout from the Detroit News a month ago. My life situation changed so I would have taken it anyway, but I was the only full-time copy editor left in sports. Now, the two guys who handle the online shift are doing double duty and a couple of writers also are helping out, with more and more of the work sliding to the universal desk.

 

I agree. It's time to pack up the tents and go home as you say. What's the point of continuing on? I guess there's still a chance of making a few dollars off the folks who simply have to have a print newspaper. The fact places like these that lay almost everybody off are still in business shows you there still is enough interest in the print product to keep going. At this point it's not even worth discussing. It's time to just kill all newspapers and let the companies go online only and they'll finally close shop completely within a year.

 

LA Times has Sondheimer, and their OC community paper, the Daily Pilot (covering Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach) has three staff preps sports writers. I'm not familiar with the rest of their preps coverage.

SCNG has: OC Register - Steve Fryer and Dan Albano, I.E./Riverside Press-Enterprise - Eric-Paul Johnson (had three full timers before last year's buyouts), Daily Breeze - Damian Calhoun (moved from OCR during buyouts, also their MLS/Soccer reporter), San Gabriel Valley Tribune - Fred Robledo, James Escarcega

LA Daily News, Long Beach Press-Telegram and (as far as I can tell), San Bernardino Sun and Inland Valley Daily Bulletin have no full-time preps sports writers.

 

Apparently, it's not nice to say bad things about the hedge fund that owns you.

Did the Sentinel’s Owner Delete a Local Story? - Good Times Santa Cruz