Colorado Springs lays off 23, including 10 in the newsroom

Took awhile to get confirmation on this: OC Register did not have its travel budget eliminated. It is, however, slashing the horse race package. It was announced to the staff last week. No more consensus or handicaps. Just entries and charts. Number of horse stories will be reduced.
OCR beat LAT in the battle for O.C. a few years ago. They won't back off on Angels, Ducks, Lakers, Clippers, college coverage.
The time clock thing was put in more than a year ago. It's just for non-editorial staff. Nobody in editorial has to do it.

 

Maybe at the OCR it isn't, but for the rest of the chain the time-clock is real for everyone, including the newsroom.

 

It wouldn't make sense for the OCR to stop traveling with the Angels, sure. But never assume in this day and age: I know the NHL isn't MLB, but no papers travel with the L.A. Kings. Not the L.A. Times. Not the L.A. Daily News. Not the Register.

 

The time-clock policy was used long ago at least one Freedom newspaper. At a paper I left in 1990, I was told to punch a time clock. Being a small staff, I would just punch the clock until I hit 40 hours and stopped. I knew they wouldn't pay overtime and I wanted to do the job right. I, of course, was being taken advantage of with the free OT but that's nothing new in newspapers.

 

wouldn't the OCR play by a different set of rules than everybody else at Freedom, since the OCR is so much bigger?

 

In theory, yes. But why should the OCR's writers be able to work from home and the smaller paper's not be able to? I just think physically clocking in and out is stupid for writers.
Because when I have to drive 70 miles away for an interview, I have to take time to go to the office and clock in before going even if it means crossing town.

 

My paper, whic is not a part of this chain, is on a time clock. We are to clock in at the office and then go to a game. If we're not required to be there, we're supposed to do most of our work at the desk via phone interviews. Previews, features, profiles, etc. The only way around this is out-of-town, overnight trips for state tournaments.

 

LAT wasn't traveling with the Ducks until they turned out to be good. That is one of several instances when the new LAT sports regime has made a policy decision then changed it a few weeks later.