More CNHI

The line I heard from a veteran colleague who had been there a while (heaven only knows why because he was way too damn good for that paper) was Capt. Crazy wanted an extra reporter's position. OK, understandable. But there wasn't THAT much news there in Podunk and what often passed for A1 centerpiece was a middle school bake sale.

I just felt that a good photographer was a very important part of a staff and shouldn't be discounted.

 

We have one poor guy left, for a daily that covers the largest county in the state.

It's a fiasco.

 

One guy left where? In sports? The entire newsroom? Colton, never let yourself be the very last guy out the door (or off a sinking ship).

 

Sorry for not being more clear, Mark. We have one photographer left.

Sports is way overstaffed -- we have two guys left...

 

Not knowing what size of paper or market. it's hard to say how that stacks up.

General rule of thumb in my day was one person per department for 10k subscribers. So less than 10K, one-person sports staff, one newsroom photog. 10-20K, two-person sports staff, two newsroom photogs, etc.

But we all seem to acknowledge that staffing levels aren't what they were 10 years ago. That's true for major metros as well as small weeklies.

 

By that standard, Mark, we are definitely understaffed.

Comparatively speaking, three other papers in the same chain, located within 200 miles of each other, all have three or even four sports staffers.

 

Yeah, Colton, staff cuts have hit everywhere. Place I worked a few years ago had five people in sports when I came. By the time I left it was down to 3 1/2. Now it's 2 1/2. (By 1/2, I mean a part-timer.) And that includes someone to do pagination 7 nights per week.

That seems to be the trend and it slowly sucked all the enjoyment out of the job. It meant you couldn't travel to events like you used to. It made it harder to have any scheduling flexibility or take any vacation or off days. Enterprise and investigative stuff has gone by the wayside at the time papers needed it the most.

It just made it a real grind. And given the fact the money was equal to or less than what people I knew in other businesses were making, eventually it got to be "why I am doing this job?"

 

Mark, we've gone from 4 1/2 to 2 in the last 5 years. That includes pagination 7 nights a week, plus I've done the sports section of our website every single night -- without exception -- for the last 13 years.

It is what it is, I guess... I'm fortunate to have a job.

 

Every night for 13 years?

Every single night? ... How? ... Why?

 

How? That's the simple part -- I can access the system from anywhere on my laptop, etc.

Why? That's complicated... I guess it comes down to it's one aspect of how things used to be done in my department that I can still do, and do it as well as ever, no matter how many cuts have been made. It's a small matter of pride to me, I believe.

 

Pride in your job is about the only thing you can have left in this company. If they found that cost them money, they'd furlough your pride too.

 

Agreed, completely.