New newspaper cutbacks thread

Is NYT going to 50-inch web, or is it smaller? And can we expect other papers to start going smaller still?

Edit: I just found it in the story. 48 inches. The papers in my area are universally 50.

 

My boss told me today that I have to eat in my car each day before I come in to work instead of eating at my desk midway through the night. He said it came from higher up.

Then he told my my attitude could use a little work..............

 

You got it.



Thanks, but I'll take this past week's issue over the one shown above.

But I sure do miss those seven-page swimsuit issues . . . and those "Week in Review" capsules for baseball and football. Magnificent writing. "The Phillies (3-4) were swept by the Cardinals (5-2) despite Mike Schmidt's three home runs . . . The Cubs (3-4) moved into second place in the East after winning two of three from the Pirates (2-5)."

 

Triple R,

No sense disobeying your boss. Maybe you could compromise.

Could you ram you car through the wall so you are at your desk but still in your car?

 

I can look back in my memory without going to clips.

Yeah, there was Dan Jenkins and there were some great features years ago. However, Mark Mulvoy was pretty lame on hockey, and the other thing about Sports Illustrated back then was this - you would get a subscription letter offering you a really cheap price. OK, you can't go wrong here, I would think to myself. So I sign up, pay the cheap price, and it comes for 26 weeks. And instead of getting a good rundown of what was going on in major league baseball (and that is an unquestioned improvement today compared to years ago) instead of just some cutesy feature, you get this big story in the middle about hunting in Africe - or later, photo safaris. And it wasn't just that they would put it there, it was like... they were Ivy League editors who knew better than us unwashed masses so you were supposed to salute it.

So you don't renew your subscription. Then, when you see the magazine in the library or borrow (OK, rip off) your friend's copy, you see a couple of articles and think, "Hey, maybe it's changing". So you get the cheap subscription again, and the cycle starts all over again, this time with a story about an athlete from some country in Africa whose name keeps changing every month.

That was SI 20 or 30 years ago. That was why I loved Inside Sports when it came out.

 

Publisher passed a no-eating-at-your-desk rule earlier this year. ME is the big, bad bouncer who walks around trying to enforce it when he's not eating at his desk. 'Cuz, ya know, there are really two sets of rules at work. ;D

 

What's the logic behind a "no eating at your desk rule"? Can somebody enlighten me?

As for the "it's summer, it's hot" post -- I'm sorry, when one of the five largest metropolitan papers in the country lets it be known that it's making a decision to not cover either of the hockey teams in its circulation on the road -- particularly the Kings -- that's news.

 

Post of the year. Right on, BT.

 

For one, we got new desktops. First upgrade the newsroom has had in over 10 years, so I guess they better last another 10. Also, some people didn't just snack at their desks, they had a whole meal.

 

Another reason I always hear is the janitors bitch when they have to clean up the messes underneath the desks.

I can see both sides of the argument. But one thing I will always say is this:

As soon as this newspaper is staffed sufficiently with what it needs, including tech support, there will no longer be a need for me to eat at my desk. Because I really don't want to.

 

Hopefully the LAT made this decision with a better understanding of hockey interest in its market than any of us has. I doubt the same people would make the same decision if they were working in Boston, New York, Philly, Detroit or Chicago. I would hope not, at least.

As for the discussion of writing quality today compared with 30 years ago, or even 20 years ago, I would say there's been kind of a homogenization. Even in the mid-1980s there were some pretty large dailies that were archaic -- cliche-ridden writing and heds, truly ugly layout (I won't even call it design) -- old-time sports writing that was just plain awful. And there were some great sections that gave writers some room to tell a story. Now everybody does pretty much the same things, but the quality of execution varies. So today we are better, and worse.