A newspaper that is saving money without cutting jobs

It's also, according to Hoosier, $340,000 cheaper. It's certainly not ideal, but I know I've written up plenty of briefs giving credit to ESPN.com or SI.com or another paper in the state. It's not copying and pasting, it's rewriting and giving credit where credit is due. Again, it's not ideal, but if it does save jobs (and there's no guarantee it will), you're still getting the information out there.

 

Bingo.

Few publishers - and that's probably being too nice - will put the money back into the product. They're too busy stuffing it into their own pocket, and throwing the shareholders a bone.

The second graph is the next step in the process. Roughly three people will care about the grip-and-grins. The paper will then act as if nothing outside the city limits exists or will attempt to spin it as not-so-important.

Wash, rinse, repeat ... as another publication circles the drain.

 

Bakersfield is family-owned. No shareholders.

I personally believe "the sky isn't falling." It's 2008, AP continues to act like they run the ONLY wire and photo service in the country. It's not like the early 80s when copy editors were grabbing the latest version of AP stories and cut and pasting it on a board. We aren't abandoning wire services, just AP.

Cut and pasting like a common blogger. Hardly. As I've said, we still have MCT, LAT-WP and NYTimes.

I didn't come on here to defend because I don't agree with management on a majority of their "cost-cutting" moves. But this move makes sense, if in fact, they hire new employees with the savings.

 

People in charge need to be cut. And fired.

 

That will never happen. Everyone is using economy as scapegoat, not poor business practices.

 

They won't. Will not. Write it down.

They'll claim the increasing cost of newsprint ate up that projected budget.
They'll say the cost of some new terminals, a new layout program, word-processing program, cameras and just about everything else gobbled up the money.
They'll lie to their editors and say that new employees aren't in the budget.
The rising cost of gasoline caused a travel budget spike ... only the publication didn't increase mileage rates for the employees.

Then they'll give them all those pages and tell them to fill it with local. Local content that interests no one outside the immediate family.

Starman has seen this. I've seen this. Other posters have discussed how they're hamstrung in terms of staffing and that they've been told they cannot hire anyone else. That's followed by publishers who get a big bonus for controlling costs - occasionally a big enough sum of money to hire an employee. There are stories of this prevalent throughout this board, and I find it difficult to believe that this many people are fabricating these stories.

Many of us would like to share your idealism, HoosierLoser. But too many of us have heard, experienced and watched these same lies spread around.

 

So what's wrong with this idea? Everyone who's interested in the major pro or college team is going to read the major metro anyway. People read the local paper for local copy. Wire copy is just filler.

 

Sam Mills. I hope I'm right but I have my doubts. The more I hear these horror stories, the more I wonder aloud about leaving this profession.

 

If they hire new people with the leftover money, how is that a good idea? There's no way five new employees could do the work of an AP wire.

It's a touching concept (that, as others say, will never be done). But it's won't make a better product. Sorry.

 

Folks...We still have MCT, LAT-WP and

We're not giving up wire totally. We're not putting up a border fence around Bakersfield proper and reporting only local news. The newspaper will still have McClatchy, NYTimes Services and LATimes-Washington Post.

We try to stay away from AP stories for the most part and use stories from Charlotte, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Dallas, New York, L.A., Washington, Seattle, etc. We mainly use AP for roundups. Roundups can be produced by a trained monkey.

 

Be sure and tell that to the person whose job it is to produce those roundups.

You're not gonna get what you need from surfing MLB Gametracker or some other site like that. What's that gonna tell you? Let's say a guy throws a no-hitter. You can report that he threw a no-hitter, but you can't tell anyone what the scene was like after the game, or what he threw to get the last batter, or what the best defensive play was. All you'll see is "G Anderson flied out to left." You won't see that that was a diving catch on a ball tailing down the line. Sure, you have your McClatchy/LAT/NYT wire. But the less and less they cover stuff, the more you're gonna wish you had AP.

As for the "everyone is going to read the major metro anyway" line of reasoning, who are these people who subscribe to more than one newspaper? Because I can't find them. Jesus. It's hard enough to get people to subscribe to one newspaper, let alone two.

You wanna drop AP to save money? Fine, go ahead. But stop telling me that it's going to serve the readers better. It isn't. That money is NOT going back into hiring employees, particularly not employees to "scavenge the Web and produce wire copy." Who's gonna take that job, by the way? Who's going to take a job whose essential duties are plagiarizing and doing something that can be done by a "trained monkey?" Why would you hire employees, whom you have to pay benefits, etc., to do something that an entire organization already exists to do for you?

 

Right, because what papers need most these days is an(other) excuse for people to go elsewhere for information.