USA TODAY losing all NBA Reporters

Don't know about the mid-sized and larger-sized Gannett papers, but the small ones around where I live have eliminated the position of sports editor. The old version of the sports editor now edits ALL local copy and designs pages. They also are weeding out coverage of high school sports (the lifeline of a small community sports section) and are moving to recreational sports. I know one small Gannett paper that has cut its coverage of prep football and basketball so much, that in every Saturday paper, it runs a rec column and a pic of some 8-year-old holding up a dead 6-point buck.

 

If your circulation is up and your website is ultra-popular and you can't sell it, you need better salesmen/saleswomen, not fewer journalists.

Journalism is the only industry that clears 10-25 percent profit and complains about it. If you clear 8% profit in most businesses, you're popping champagne corks. In journalism it means layoffs.

If I'm USA Today and circ. and website numbers are up and profits are down, these people need to be fired: publisher, head of ad sales, all sales people, and all business execs. There's not even a debate here, they are failing and in almost all businesses if your sell more product but your numbers are down you're fired ... or it means someone is stealing from the company till.

All business people need to be fired at Gannett, ASAP, because if they can't run their business with extremely high sales, they don't know how to run a business.

 

He grew up in the Bay Area, though. Could be one of those job-of-a-lifetime things.

 

Could be the Arizona Republic is a skeleton.
I always looked at that paper as a lost opportunity. A true statewide newspaper with a statewide production operation. A demographic of older citizens that still read newspapers. A bustling urban life in the greater Phoenix area.
In sports, strong college programs. A team in every pro league. Man, what could have been.