Augusta, Ga. Sports copy editor / page designer

Augusta is the largest paper in GA or SC that doesn't regularly staff football at UGA, USC or Clemson. Ninety-five percent of their USC and Clemson coverage is wire. And basketball? Forget about it.

That's not to say it can't be a cool place to work in an underrated town with a fun social scene. But excellent Masters coverage aside, the sports section is a shell of its former self thanks mostly to budget cuts.

 

... And some devastating staff departures. 8)

 

budget cuts in morris? i don't believe it

 

We have a winner.

 

SS seems like an intelligent person lacking an agenda or some self-serving propoganda or checking in just to check in. Who hasn't had budget cuts or bad managers? Certainly Morris doesn't have a patent on it. I feel more knowledgeable about the job now. Finally.

 

That's perhaps the most disturbing thing about the Augusta Chronicle -- its lack of college coverage. They'll send their columnist to college games, but most gamers come from the other Morris papers or the wire. As a designer at a nearby paper, the one thing I always hated about the Chronicle was its 4-2 rule on the front. If I remember correctly, the sports front can only have four stories on the front and only two are allowed to jump. A lot of times that left their columnist at a major game either stripped across the bottom way too deep (so it doesn't jump) or buried on Page 8. I know of one writer, if I remember correctly, who covered a pretty big college basketball game and was limited to eight inches, because there were two other stories jumping off the front. This rule may have changed, but that's the way it was a few years ago.

Back in the good, 'ol days of about five years ago, there were at least two other staff writers on staff (one worked Aiken County and the S.C. prep sports and the other covered college sports (USC, Georgia, Clemson). Both positions have essentially disappeared. The GA reporter does a lot of GA work, but he's also responsible for coverage of the area colleges (USC Aiken, Augusta State and Paine College). The SE is a very good guy, and the ASE (if it's the guy I think it is) is a cool guy, too. But this paper isn't what it used to be from a coverage standpoint.

That being said, they still kick ass on Masters Coverage. Not many people cover a big sporting event as well as they do.

 

SC, I don't know if it's still a rule, but when I was home over the weekend, that's the way the front was. 4 stories, 2 jumped.

I don't like it.