McClatchy to eliminate 1,600 jobs

No, no one quite saw this economic crisis coming. But newspaper revenues were falling by 2006, and yet McClatchy (and Lee and Sam Zell and others), all took on massive debt to buy more newspapers. Thinking, what, exactly? That they were special and could make it all work?
Now that debt is strangling them. The execs and lawyers and bond advisers all got paid off for those deals years ago. We're the ones who get the shit end of the stick.
And, really, the fact that McClatchy immediately dumped a third of the papers it bought might have been a sign that it bit off more than it could chew.

 

It's amazing... A few years ago, those notes column jobs and national jobs were something guys earned after doing excellent beat work. These days it almost guarantees that your job will be cut.

 

Nothing that's happening now wasn't predicted years ago. Consolidated desks between multiple newspapers ravaging editing/pagination jobs, ad revenues plummeting thanks to the internet, a flood on the market of qualified journalists.

We've been hearing about if for years, and now here it is.

 

The most unfortunate aspect of this is the people who ignored those predictions are the managers who are keeping their jobs. At my old paper, the reporters were saying for years, "We need to do more." and they ignored us until it was way too late. That's what happens when managers are so out of touch, and I think for the most part, the majority of them were.

 

Well said, Mizzou. We ALL saw this coming. Management, too. Saying that "nobody saw this coming" is kind of like saying nobody foresaw the devastation from Hurricane Katrina. The news industry has had everything but the WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS bulletin -- and chose instead to stifle innovation, to discourage new ways of thinking, and to blow huge sums of money on the few new ideas (CueCat, anyone?) that were without question doomed to fail.

The rank and file have been warning of this for years. Some have tried to share their ideas. Many died in a middle manager's office. Many more died in an executive suite. Executives were playing follow-the-leader, and they followed right off a cliff.

 

Several years ago, I suggested that all beat writers file a gamer to be immediately be posted to the web much like a running story and was scoffed at. When they made it common practice about four years later, the person who made it SOP was lauded like he was some kind of innovative genius.

 

I like your innovation, Mizzou, but I've been more in favor of posting the AP story immediately to the Web site (as many places do) so that your beat writer can actually, y'know, watch the game and ask the right questions afterward and be thinking of something interesting and analytical to write. Running stories, just to get a staff byline and dateline on a nuts-and-bolts account that is available from a wire service, isn't the best way to use your people's observational skills and labor, IMO. (An absoultely no-muss, no-fuss shorty version? I could go along with that. But you don't have to "fill a hole" of a predetermined length online, so even 6 inches ought to do the job for the instantaneous surfers.)

 

Timing is everything, Mizzou!

 

I hate to say it, but newspapers are getting what they deserve. The unfortunate thing is the innocent are paying for the crimes of idiocy of the guilty.

 

Could stick this as a standing post on every other thread on the journalism board. Maybe three out of four.

 

First time I read something from Mizzou I thought was awful. Writing a running story during a game for the Web is stupid and draining on the writer who should be watching the game closely especially in this day and age of trying to write more analytical game stories or game stories with more pizazz than the old days. Use the AP and change a few words and make it staff and wire report. Or have the writer or desk put up the fucking score. Or link to one of those websites that have all the play by play on them. It's a waste of effort and manpower to do the play by play gamer.

 

Frederick,

Truly, I don't think there are very many opportunities where reporters don't have to write a running game story anyway, especially on pro or major college beats. The combination of later starts because of television and earlier deadlines because of cost-cutting turns a lot of games into a deadline situation.

About the only thing that isn't is an early Saturday game or a Sunday afternoon game. If I cover a 3 p.m. or 4 p.m. Saturday game, I have to do some running. I don't have to file at the horn, but I don't have tons of time either.

Hence, I don't think posting that running gamer (which I'm normally filing for the first edition) on the web is that big of a deal.