RIP ESPN The Magazine

[jr/shotglass]

The first paper I worked for ran nightly youth baseball linescores for all levels, T-ball to whatever. And they were all called in before the internet era. Nobody could go out to eat between 6:30 and 8:30, then it was a scramble to see who could get out of the door fastest. Oh, and the damn thing would take up 2 full columns, there were that many of them. Those were not fun times.

This was the newspaper world I grew up in ... and I loved it, working the phones. Even wrote a Little League column at 16, sort of a weekly feature on some kid with notes about other happenings in the area's 6-7 leagues. Plus nightly, I had free rein to go wherever I wanted for a 6 p.m. game -- Little League, Legion, sandlot, slo-pitch softball, summer soccer, anything -- and shoot photos. One or two would run the next day.

Yeah, I liked that time. It's probably good I'm out of the game now.

 

[reformedhack]

Economics change. I was told by an executive of the Denver Post in the 70's that a newspaper had to be at least 25% editorial and only 75% ads are they would lose preferential post office rates.

So if a paper started to receive additional advertising because the population of the metro area was growing, such as in Denver and many other cities, the paper had to come up with additional editorial content. Every additional three line classified required an additional line of editorial. Paying you a presumably small salary was a cheap way to fill the space. And what else could they have put in that would have drawn as much interest?

This is true for the most part, but not at all what I was referring to.