The news from Hartford

cranberry · Jul 29, 2008

Frank_Ridgeway said:

jemaz said:

It seems clear from an outsider point of view that staff coverage of the Yankees and Red Sox (and Giants and Jets and Patriots etc....) by the Hartford Courant is very nice for the guys who got to do it, but redundant for the readers of the newspapers, who have more on the Red Sox and Yankees from the New York and Boston papers and ESPN than they ever could reasonably consume. This is a great example of a chance for a newspaper to turn to the local market and actually report on things its readers cannot get elsewhere (and I have no idea what that possibly might be). Its like coverage of the Redskins by the Times Dispatch, Daily Press and Virginian Pilot. My question as a reader of those sections always was why? They never could come close to the Post and others. Their resources were much better spent on the state and local colleges and the things in their back yard.

All that said, I feel for the folks out of a job. This is a time of painful transition for a lot of good people. I hope it works out as best it can for every one of them.
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You are writing theoretically and you are making assumptions that weren't true. Hartford had people like Greg Garber on pro football and Peter May on the Celtics and Jack O'Connell and Claire Smith on baseball, and the coverage was as good as, if not better than, what readers could find in New York and Boston papers. In the case of O'Connell and Smith, they arrived in Hartford after having written for papers in New York City and Philadelphia, respectively, and I believe they also had a Red Sox writer who had written for what was then the Boston Herald-American. It wasn't wannabe coverage, it was first-rate, on par with any major metro's beat reporting. The section became less ambitious over the years, but there was a tremendous history of coverage and readers were conditioned to get it from the Courant, not from another paper.
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Frank's got it. The Courant was a GREAT, not just good, regional newspaper that owned the corridor between New York and Boston. Not just in sports, either. Then LA Times-Mirror was replaced by the Tribune Co. and, well, it was nice while it lasted.

This makes me want to go to Kenny's for last call. Is Kenny's still there?

BoughtOut · Jul 30, 2008

cranberry said:

Frank_Ridgeway said:

jemaz said:

It seems clear from an outsider point of view that staff coverage of the Yankees and Red Sox (and Giants and Jets and Patriots etc....) by the Hartford Courant is very nice for the guys who got to do it, but redundant for the readers of the newspapers, who have more on the Red Sox and Yankees from the New York and Boston papers and ESPN than they ever could reasonably consume. This is a great example of a chance for a newspaper to turn to the local market and actually report on things its readers cannot get elsewhere (and I have no idea what that possibly might be). Its like coverage of the Redskins by the Times Dispatch, Daily Press and Virginian Pilot. My question as a reader of those sections always was why? They never could come close to the Post and others. Their resources were much better spent on the state and local colleges and the things in their back yard.

All that said, I feel for the folks out of a job. This is a time of painful transition for a lot of good people. I hope it works out as best it can for every one of them.
Click to expand...

You are writing theoretically and you are making assumptions that weren't true. Hartford had people like Greg Garber on pro football and Peter May on the Celtics and Jack O'Connell and Claire Smith on baseball, and the coverage was as good as, if not better than, what readers could find in New York and Boston papers. In the case of O'Connell and Smith, they arrived in Hartford after having written for papers in New York City and Philadelphia, respectively, and I believe they also had a Red Sox writer who had written for what was then the Boston Herald-American. It wasn't wannabe coverage, it was first-rate, on par with any major metro's beat reporting. The section became less ambitious over the years, but there was a tremendous history of coverage and readers were conditioned to get it from the Courant, not from another paper.
Click to expand...

Frank's got it. The Courant was a GREAT, not just good, regional newspaper that owned the corridor between New York and Boston. Not just in sports, either. Then LA Times-Mirror was replaced by the Tribune Co. and, well, it was nice while it lasted.

This makes me want to go to Kenny's for last call. Is Kenny's still there?
Click to expand...

Yes, still run by the same folks, though it goes by the name Red Rock now. . . should be full of last-day employees Thursday night (7/31)

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The news from Hartford

cranberry Well-Known Member

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The news from Hartford

cranberry Well-Known Member

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