Clarion-Ledger drops Southern Miss beat

[leo1]

Don't think so - the new Southern Miss beat writer and Tim share a majority ethnicity. There's diversity issues in Gannett, certainly, but there's no diversity issues in this decision, unless there's some related move somewhere I don't know about. It might have more to do with keeping a near-entry level salary and dumping the salary of a much more experienced reporter, but that's just me guessing as well.

wait, so you're saying kareem is a white guy? this is a serious question. obviously i've never seen him but ashumed, like norman, that someone named kareem would be black

 

[Batman]

Don't think so - the new Southern Miss beat writer and Tim share a majority ethnicity. There's diversity issues in Gannett, certainly, but there's no diversity issues in this decision, unless there's some related move somewhere I don't know about. It might have more to do with keeping a near-entry level salary and dumping the salary of a much more experienced reporter, but that's just me guessing as well.

wait, so you're saying kareem is a white guy? this is a serious question. obviously i've never seen him but ashumed, like norman, that someone named kareem would be black

Kareem Copeland is black.

 

[dwnsouth]

He's also not one of the people involved in this move - he left the USM beat in Hattiesburg a few months ago to take the Jackson State beat with the Clarion Ledger.

 

[PeterGibbons]

If you were in Tim's shoes, would you stay for the bowl game or head on out now?

I guess there are many people who have enough clash and character to show it through the end, even if they're getting kicked in the balls by management.

Probably not the best career move but pulling a Petrino and calling in after the game to say you didn't bother going to the game since your beat was axed would make for a great "how I left my job story." You'd be a hero to many but, may have a tough time getting your next job. If I were leaving the buisness I'd do it!!

 

[HejiraHenry]

John Ed Bradley, in his LSU book, recounts being sent to a game in Baton Rouge and being unable, because of his deep-seated "issues" with the program he'd played for, to file an line of copy from the game.

And nobody at the Post seemed to care.

Must have been nice.

 

[Blitz]

Tim Doherty's a friend of mine, from the biz.
I wish him well, too, in attempts to land on his feet.

And I can't imagine the Ledger not receiving some serious reader backlash and bad P.R. for ditching a beat with the magnitude (in that state) of USM.
Maybe they will still be doing occasional features and the occasional "big game", like when Calipari comes to Hattiesburg or USM baseball hosts a regional.
Can't see them completely relying on the H'Burg American for every inch of Southern Miss copy.

 

[HejiraHenry]

Well, the Tennessean does the same thing in getting(at least some of) their Middle Tennessee State coverage from their sister paper down the road in Murfreesboro.

 

[Jake_Taylor]

From my travels through Jackson and Nashville it seems like USM is a bigger deal in Mississippi than MTSU is in Tennessee. But I might be wrong.

 

[HejiraHenry]

From my travels through Jackson and Nashville it seems like USM is a bigger deal in Mississippi than MTSU is in Tennessee. But I might be wrong.

I wouldn't disagree, andd I went to MT.

But Gannett has a playbook and this kind of thing is right out of the playbook.

 

[bp6316]

Well, the Tennessean does the same thing in getting(at least some of) their Middle Tennessee State coverage from their sister paper down the road in Murfreesboro.

Gannett is attempting to model it after what they do in Louisiana with LSU. All five G papers in La. get LSU stuff from one source and then do their own features from time to time etc.

 

[CRM]

Other examples is Gannett dropping the Purdue beat in Indianapolis' paper to only use Lafayette's. The Green Bay paper does all the Packers stuff for Appleton, as well as the rest of the Gannett group.

In some ways, it makes financial sense, in that two papers from the same corporate family both don't need to write gamers. I wonder if Jackson's paper is going to chip in travel budget to Hattiesburg or bump the salary of the one lone USM beat writer. I will guess no.

The smarter move, and no offense to the Hattiesburg USM beat writer who I don't know, would be to get rid of him and have Tim do the beat for both papers if he wanted to do that. But that would mean keeping the writer with the higher salary.

 

[da man]

The smarter move, and no offense to the Hattiesburg USM beat writer who I don't know, would be to get rid of him and have Tim do the beat for both papers if he wanted to do that. But that would mean keeping the writer with the higher salary.

Ding, ding, ding!

We have a winner.