the growth of local-local

Third local got laid off in the last round of newsroom cuts.

 

Here's what I don't get. Don't most high schools have some type of web site. Don't most schools post schedules on their web sites.

Seems to me that schools that are willing and able to do it, post schedules on the web already.

Those that don't just ain't gonna be to eager to start keyboarding.

I don't really get why this is such a boffo resource.

 

To see the downside of these systems and sites, people just need to read between the lines of Pendleton's posts.

The issue should not be how great these things are, or whether they work, or whether they save us time/resources, because, really, the reader doesn't care about any of that, even though we do.

The problem with them is that by using them, papers are giving away work, and jobs, and markets/advertising opportunities, and, in the end, the need for any more resources.

We may not like grunt work, or some of the busy work involved with our jobs, but it is, or should be, part of our work. For some people, it might even be their entire job. But by taking it out of our hands and giving it to another company, we have only made it more possible for the powers that be to say that that job, that staff member, that person, is not really needed.

See? It is a matter of resources, but not in the way that most of us are thinking.

By using this systems/sites, we have effectively given away another possible market and revenue-generating source to yet another, larger and more powerful company.

And we just make them all the more powerful, and ourselves even less relevant.

 

Gannett bought highschoolsports.net, though.

 

I understand that, but when I think Gannett, I tend to think USA Today/national -- and I'm sure the company was thinking along those same lines when it bought highschoolsports.net. I'm guessing the company will begin using its new resource in such a far-ranging, all-encompassing manner as to negatively impact or undermine other media companies' attempts to do similar work.

I know what highschoolsports.net is. I've worked for a paper that explored using it, and did so on an experimental basis, before finally going with MaxPreps.com the next year, and giving the work, money and hits away to that site.

I guess my point is just that such systems wipe out the need for sources to go to, or want to go to, smaller papers. And that will only happen at the expense of the smaller, less-powerful papers or companies.

The same thing will happen, even if it is a media outlet, when a national company corners the market on such information by being the only one able and/or willing to buy such sites/systems.

I suppose that's just capitalism at work, but it's still not necessarily a great thing.

 

I don't understand how it is so difficult to put together a web page that includes schedules, stats, forums, photos and all that.

 

Well, I'd have plenty of newsroom resources to devote to a kick-butt high school sports Web presence on my newspaper's Web site --- If I didn't still have to feed that beast called daily production of the print edition.

Get rid of the newspaper, already. If we're going to become a Web-based media outlet, let's do it already. Trying to stretch ourselves too thin on too many platforms is going to be the end of us.

Which gets back to my main points: (1) My boss wants a greater Web presence for Sports; (2) I have no resources to build such a thing from scratch; (3) which is why it would have been great to partner with highschoolsports.net

 

25 schools x 20 varsity sports = 500 schedules.

We already type in the schedules for the print edition, but we do those for a day-by-day calendar, not school-by-school or sport-by-sport schedules.

We have no elegant or easy way to get that material online, beyond perhaps hiring two people (ha!) to spent half the summer typing.

 

With a little computer help, you could have folks email in the schedules and upload them -- voila!

 

I think it's more realistic as a service to the reader but not as something you ask coaches to interact with.

Our prep staff pretty much types in all the schedules already. If we can borrow enough manpower to transfer rosters ourself, it becomes easy to maintain this kind of Site ourselves. The key is to get high schools in the habit of emailing questionnaires, rosters, schedules, etc., instead of mailing or faxing hard copies.

 

This is what most newspapers used to do -- do things themselves -- but as everything has become more costly and less financially stable/successful the last few years, they are becoming less willing to use staff for such work, at least when there is also so much other work. And smaller staffs also are less able to handle all the work.

This is why we're looking to farm work out to coaches, AD's, parents, "citizens," and, last but not least, other systems/companies.

And if/when we do it, we're actually glad to be out from under the work. But we have still really just made it so that we ourselves are less needed, wanted and viable.

Newspapers are caught in a vicious cycle, feeding on themselves, down-sizing themselves, with almost no help from anyone, to the point they will be unable -- and maybe even unwilling -- to reverse themselves (because they're moving toward being Web sites-only, anyway, unless the economy and profit margins do the same.

And it does no good to say that profit margins are still healthy in comparison to other businesses. That doesn't matter, because they're not healthy enough for the powers that be, and now, readers are finding, even looking for, other places to get their information.

 

I can't disagree with you and I can't offer any brilliant answers.

We are being asked to be excellent in the print edition, in the online edition and in many other tangental (and new) efforts, such as magazines, books, niche Web sites, pamphlets, posters, etc., etc.

We just don't have the bodies.

Unless we narrow our focus, some stuff MUST be outsourced. To survive as managers, we must be able to have an efficient staff that does great and wide-ranging work that cannot be handled by anyone else. And, in addition to that, we must explore every other possible resource for our papers and web sites, which means a level of outsourcing, whether it's free-lancers, the licensing of Web technology and/or teaming up with existing entities that can complement our production. Such as something like highschoolsports.net.