Yet more layoffs in Tampa

Thanks for the word sir.

I was shocked when David was laid off. He was an awsome artist, one of my writers had a great idea for an enterprise story that we turned into a big project on recruiting. It would go on for an APSE.

Anywho, we were thinking of artwork that David would come up with. My writer pitched the idea to him and about a half hour later David responded "Naw, I did something like that a little while ago for another story, here's what I'm thinking." It was a cartoon of the Big Bad Wolf in grandma's clothes holding out a letter of intent with this drooling look on the wolf's face. The kid being recruited was wearing a basketball uni and the red riding hood and picnic basket with a puzzled 'what do I do?' look on his face. It was awesome. David threw some of his personal funny touches and it made for great center art on Day one of the three-day project. Kind of went along with the whole good, bad and ugly of recruiting.

 

Was that 2007 or 2008?

I think it was 2008 when a sports guy (I know his name, but I'm just going to omit it) was let go the day after his wife and kid got out of the hospital after a difficult childbirth and he had to drive eight hours round trip to return his phone and computer the following day...

I think that was the beginning of the "You Go Girl" debacle.

 

I was part of the 2007 purge - the first great purge o' people in Tampa. Ijn 2008, Mizz, you're blending the two reporters of the same name, one with the same first name as the other with the same last name. Get it? I know hard to explain without blabbing names, but I think you know. One reporter had the wife with the childbirth and the other had to drive from Tally with his computer.

Both of those reporters were on my team at one point or the other and both were great writers. DAMMIT we had a bunch of good people.

And yes, the now infamous "You go girl" line was written by the blabbing blogger intern after the 2008 debacle.

 

Thanks. The Highlands Today was on the verge of putting the old local, the News-Sun, down for good when I was there in 2004-06. We had a great operation and put out a great product.

But now, they're down to 2 rather than 3 in sports and they've shrunk back their coverage area from Desoto (happened before I got there) and Hardee (after I left) counties. We'd have these huge sections we'd have to fill without full AP (it'd compete with Tampa) and we did it with lots and lots and lots of rewritten releases and stuff from the MG wire. Hence, there was a lot of NASCAR (Bristol and Richmond) and a lot of Virginia Tech stuff in there. I had to do an outdoors section with a fishing columnist, a bird columnist and some strange nature columnist who lived on the edge of the Glades.

Now, it's dying on the vine. I won't be surprised if there are more layoffs to come. I won't be surprised either if the whole operation shuts its doors.

 

You are right sir... Thanks for the correction. And they are both great writers and great guys.

If I'm not mistaken, one is out of the business and the other is working for a school's website.

 

You are not mistaken. Sorry for the late reply, been slammed lately.

 

I don't know if this is a sign of things to come for other MG properties, but Charlottesville was told to tighten the purse strings until the end of the year. That paper relies strictly on freelancers for high school coverage and sometimes help on the non-revenue UVa sports, but freelance features, enterprise, notebooks and anything but game coverage is getting cut out, at least until January.

 

It could be a lot worse, I suppose. In Brooksville (Hernando Today), it was decided that there was no longer a need for an SE and that position was one of the causalities in Monday's bloodbath. They're now down to a one-person staff for a five-day-a-week paper with a circulation of roughly 11,000, which doesn't exactly inspire a lot of confidence for the upcoming year.

 

That's terrible to hear. The SE had been there for what felt like forever and came off as one of those guys you want to have in your newsroom, those guys who just know off the top of their head every bit of local sports history and every local athlete dating back decades.

 

Across the bay, Times announced Romano is moving to metro. I'm guessing Tom Jones adjusts his role and writes more on location, but that's just a guess.

 

Just to put this into perspective, it's now former sports columnist Joe Henderson for the Tribune vs. former sports columnist John Romano for the Times on the metro news pages of the two dailies. Interesting, to say the least. (Also testament to the notion that sports folks can write anything.)

I also suspect 1HPGrad is right about Tom Jones' role changing. They've been squeezing his 2 Cents page for space reasons for the past six months or so. I have a feeling you'll see it anchoring 1C in some fashion going forward.