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Wichita Eagle bails on Saturday print

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by BurnsWhenIPee, Aug 14, 2019.

  1. BurnsWhenIPee

    BurnsWhenIPee Well-Known Member

  2. BTExpress

    BTExpress Well-Known Member

    McClatchy is phasing out Saturday print in several of its smaller papers. But they still have e-edition Saturday sections that are designed like regular pages by a designer. They just aren't typeset to a press room.
     
  3. Fran Curci

    Fran Curci Well-Known Member

    I would guess that the Wichita paper is the biggest McClatchy paper yet to go to six days. Sacramento next? Miami?
     
  4. maumann

    maumann Well-Known Member

    Since I haven't stepped on a high school football field in 20 years, I'm curious to know: Do papers without Saturday editions just punt Friday night football/basketball and put all their coverage online? A Sunday page or recap?

    However, the idea of not staring down the pressroom guys pointing at their watches at 11 p.m. when I'm waiting on a stringer to put three sentences together on deadline is intriguing. I will say going to a form of publishing where nobody ever called in results ("Hello, this is Brian France. I've got the Canadian Tire Series agate but it's not coming through the fax machine.") on the phone was a welcome change.
     
    Liut likes this.
  5. maumann

    maumann Well-Known Member

    And I have the utmost respect for the men and women who are still fighting the good fight. I'm just glad my Friday nights no longer revolve around 17-year-old kids.
     
    Liut likes this.
  6. BTExpress

    BTExpress Well-Known Member

    Most of McClatchy's 30 or so papers have deadlines so early that high school football never makes Saturday print edition anyway. Wichita's deadline, for example, is 9 p.m. CDT. The California papers (Sacramento, Merced, San Luis Obispo, Fresno) all have deadlines between 7-9 p.m. PDT.
     
  7. Fredrick

    Fredrick Well-Known Member

    Truthfully, I think most sports editors in pro towns or neighboring pro towns killed high school coverage on their own as a casualty of layoffs and the moving of production to cities 500 to 1000 miles away. It's just too difficult to manage providing scores and recaps when the out of state production sites aren't equipped for Friday night lights and Tuesday/Friday night basketball lights as they were when the papers brought in part-timers to take the scores and summaries off the phone and grizzled veteran copy chiefs and layout experts crammed all the game results in by midnight. The combination of early deadlines, no staff I think made sports editors quietly kill high school coverage.
    What you find now are high schools very very very upset at newspapers because the only time they send over reporters is to cover negative news at the school: teachers getting in trouble; allegations of coach abuse; heaven forbid terrorist threats, etc.
    I would assume small town papers that have their papers printed at larger newspapers are the ones with big-time problems. They have to keep covering high school obviously but with early deadlines and no bodies to cover games ... ouch. And nobody is covering high school on the internet. No page views.
     
  8. SoloFlyer

    SoloFlyer Well-Known Member

    In places where high school football is big but deadlines are early or there is no Saturday paper, the good outlets go with a gamer/recap online and then a feature off the game for Sunday.

    There are plenty, though, that just reuse a straightforward gamer on Sunday. Which is dumb.
     
    Liut likes this.
  9. SFIND

    SFIND Well-Known Member

    We do it. Don't have the time to re-work the stories -- not with all the other job functions that need performed. Certainly don't have the budget to pay a freelancer for a second story from the same game, either.
     
  10. SoloFlyer

    SoloFlyer Well-Known Member

    No need for a freelancer. And I find it hard to believe that other job functions get in the way of asking the right questions postgame so you can just write a second story that night.

    Spend less time on the gamer - 250 words, max. If the AP can restructure its game content, we can too.
     
    Liut likes this.
  11. SFIND

    SFIND Well-Known Member

    No need for a freelancer? So we call up those coaches and interview for the follow-up story? Yeah sure, why not. We'll re-work the stories of the games we were at (with all that in-depth information we were able to get from all that time we had in a long interview before rushing to file before the 9:30 deadline), then we'll re-work the stringers' stuff and then tackle all the roundup/agate etc. Then we'll handle all the college football responsibilities and what we cover of the other eight fall high school sports that have events on Saturday. Plenty of time to do all that before the early Saturday deadline.
     
  12. BurnsWhenIPee

    BurnsWhenIPee Well-Known Member

    Our local paper had its first year of early deadlines last fall, and I thought they did a pretty reasonable job with it.

    They had photogs at 2 games, with a staffer and a couple of stringers at games. They wrote your typical gamers to go online Friday night, and didn't have to fight deadlines to get those stories up, obv. Then for Sunday in print, they did a little roundup thing that included snippets from the 3 games they covered, added a "best of the rest" roundup with highlights and top individual performances from games they didn't cover, and included a scorebox with all the scores.

    The only thing they got ripped for (deservedly) was not running any agate. They really can't, since they laid off all their clerks and don't take any high school call-ins anymore.
     
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