BANG you're dead

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18740021

Scroll down to the part where 120 jobs out of 1,500 are being cut.

 

This is a sad day. There are a lot of proud papers up there that are being consolidated. From what I'm reading from a couple of guys I went to college with who now work up there, this is the final death nail of the old ANG papers. Sounds like the prep sports coverage is going away. There's a line in the story about expanded pro and college coverage. There are a lot of good schools up there, particularly De La Salle that has received national attention. It could be that those who do prep sports will see the ax, on top of those whose positions are getting consolidated.

 

Unless you go to a LA Times-like model where most of your preps is on the web, how do you not cover high school sports?

Notice no word, either, on San Jose, Santa Cruz and Monterey.

 

San Jose is being left alone, just the San Mateo County Times is getting folded under the umbrella of the Merc. I hope the Sentinel and the Herald are going to be left alone in this mess.

 

Every time this happens, it makes me feel like what we do has no value at all.

It's difficult to stomach.

 

Agreed. The one thing that might save Monterey is that they face competition from the Salinas Californian ... well, as much competiton as there can be between two papers stripped bare by Gannett and Deano. As for Santa Cruz, well, you want to say they've carved out a unique spot in their market, but, hell, you could say that about all the dearly departed.

 

Usually a great front office decision: Cut local coverage, then wonder why subscriptions, and eventually ads, plummet.

 

Well the SF Chronicle already basically punted all their preps coverage. Any of it comes from a former staffer who now works at MaxPreps.

Awesome that they say there will be more college and pro news... just as long as they neither produce nor pay for it.

Just fucking atrocious.

 

And of course, the lead paragraph is the same-old bullshit of corporate buzzwords, followed by the obligatory "Yeah, we're cutting a lot, but dammit, we're going to be even better!" crappy line.

 

Do more with less! Do more with less!! Every time I hear that line I could scream.

I kind of saw something like this coming. I'd think about "what if all these papers were folded under one name" and think naaa, they wouldn't do that. (rollseyes)