Some more DMN stuff

Frank: Are they still that big? I know they were during their heyday, but didn't they get smaller on the previous round of cutbacks?

I could be wrong, just asking...

 

As I know from personal experience, when staff cuts are combined with coverage limitations, it inevitably leads to even more and more drastic staff cuts.
A paper whose golf beat writer doesn't cover the majors inevitably discovers that it no longer needs a golf beat writer. General staff can cover the local PGA/Champions/LPGA events, summer interns the summer local tourneys.
No Wimbledon, no US Open, no need to pay a veteran just to cover tennis. Apply the same to auto racing, etc.
What results is a situation where the paper winds up sending five or six people to a Rangers game just because it's there. Then the bosses look at that silliness and conclude we don't need all these sportswriters.

 

Yikes...

 

Back in 1984, DMN football section came out during the time the Republican Presidential Nominating Convention was in Dallas. If I remember, the total pages was in the low 100s. It was so impressive in size and scope that David Brinkley mentioned it during NBC News coverage from the convention.
DMN's web site should have Barbra Streisand's "The Way We Were" playing in the backgound.

 

I still have that section. It is a journalistic marvel.

 

I know from interning there a long while back the place has way too many editors for its own good. I mean, they had one editor each for NFL, MLB, NBA and colleges (not counting Yates and Smith). Then the hierarchy worked its way down from there. I'm not so certain cutting some fat there will mean the end of the "Great American sports section." Cutting back on reporters is bad for all, but there were guys who wrote two or three times a year. The staff I'm on now has a fraction of the employees but we still produce a APSE Top 10 section.    

Goose Gosselin is always going to be safe. Apparently he was offered a job at Sportsline a few years back and turned it down when Dallas promised him he could keep his travel budget. I mean, the guy is the top of the food chain for NFL writers, you HAVE to keep Goose.

 

Cutting back on staff is bad enough but couple that with cutting back on content and Belo has destroyed one of the best sports sections in the country. The football tab last year was nothing more than page after page of advertising with a little copy thrown in to make it look good.

And Michael has a great point. They may say they're cutting 20 positions but they'll indirectly cut many, many more when people start bailing for better jobs and they aren't replaced.

 

There are better jobs?
Where? Tell me.
Please.

 

Well, if you're the DMN golf writer a better job would be one that lets you cover, ummm, golf...

 

Moondoggy, I believe you are a man on the inside.

What's the atmosphere in Beloville these days?

 

The way I hear it, people are looking for lifeboats, but there aren't any. They expect cuts of 10-20 staffers, and there aren't enough old hands who would benefit from taking the buyouts. As a result, morale -- bad for two years now -- is in the toilet.

FYI, current staff is about 90-95.