3 Gannett papers going to 3-days-per-week

Alexandria (La.) Town Talk
Hattiesburg (Miss.) American
Opelousas (La.) Daily World

The Town Talk to move to 3 days a week of publication

 

I counted 104 newspapers on the Ganett website. The over/under on the date more than 50% of the newspapers fall into this category?

Does anyone know if these papers maintain seperate editorial staffs or have they been merged. Is part of the idea that staff write produce Alexandria one day and Opelousas the next?

 

I know the Hattiesburg American gets a lot of its sports content from the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson. The HA has its own prep writer and Southern Miss beat writer (who sends copy to the C-L), but gets all its Ole Miss and Mississippi State content from Jackson.

 

Where's Fredrick?

 

Dumb quote from some corporate jackass on how great this will be for the community in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

 

Lafayette pretty much completely handles Opelousas content. Opelousas does have a sports writer, but he's part-time (now he cranks out some content, but still a part-time employee). They have a photographer, has been there for a very long time, but he's more of the grip-and-grin type of photographer. They had a news reporter, but she just took a new job (maybe she got wind of what was coming).

So, Opelousas had a 3-person staff in a very small office. When I worked at that paper in the 90s, sports had a 3-person staff, news had six reporters and two editors and there was a full advertising staff. Opelousas hasn't had an editor in-house for at least five years.

Last time I saw that paper, it was two 8-page sections (including 2-3 USAT pages). Sports was down to 1 page and probably 75% of the stories were from Lafayette reporters.

I feel bad for that community and that paper. It was, once upon a time, one of the top papers in its circulation.

 

In my last newspaper gig, I was the sports editor for a three-day-a-week Hearst paper. Frankly, it was a fucking waste of time because nobody is reading dated shit. Because of production and deadlines and the fact I was basically a one-man operation, we almost never had breaking news in the paper itself, only on the website. Putting together the print just became an albatross. If you're gonna go three days a week, just say fuck it altogether, IMHO.

 

I'll say July 1, 2020.

I wonder what they'll charge. I was just told a daily near me just increased their home delivery to $350 yearly, and I can't imagine anyone paying that, even the elderly.

 

I think that's where they're headed, but probably understand in a lot of these markets if you just quit cold turkey you're basically committing suicide. I know in Opelousas, for example, that's a print-centric market. They have to give them something in order to keep what they have. If they just stopped printing and went 100% digital, they'd be closing up shop within a year. Despite what they'll say in their corporate email, that's not a digital market and they'll have to give the digital product away for free to get anyone to read it.

 

Too lazy to look it up, but I'm wondering how the 3-issues-a-week papers in Alabama and elsewhere are doing.

I know other cities like Portland and (I think) Detroit, print editions are delivered to subscribers only 3 or 4 days a week. Has circulation plummeted? I would imagine it has, especially if they're still charging the same subscription price as when the paper was delivered every day. (Yeah, I know ... "but you get access to our new and improved website!")

 

That was the thought I had a few years ago when my paper tried to establish a $1 a day rate for print, web and everything. The dumbass owners, of course, professed "$1 a day is fine when you pay $3 or $4 for a cup of coffee." My thought was, $1 a day was OK, $7 a week was OK, but $365 a year was outrageous.

 

I might be OK with $1 a day for the print editions of the three dailies in my metro area if the quantity and quality of content compared favorably with what we'd get for a quarter 25 years ago.