Cox selling Palm Beach Post, Austin American-Statesman

Yep, the very religious Eugene Robinson, too.

Eugene Robinson, arrested before last Falcons Super Bowl, won't let 'one mistake' define him

 

I have heard third-hand that McClatchy is kicking the tires on the Palm Beach Post.

On a different topic, how many design/editing hubs does McClatchy have? I've never heard the number or specific locations.

 

There are three McClatchy hubs. They're in Charlotte, Kansas City and Sacramento.

 

If McClatchy buys Palm Beach I don't think the job losses will just be to design hubs. Since McClatchy owns Miami I think the editorial staffs of the paper would be combined and Palm Beach would become a glorified bureau, McClatchy, which owns Raleigh, just bought Durham and I think that is what happened.

 

Not much staff to be gained anyway. That PB newsroom is a barren field.

 

Miami is the one McClatchy paper not part of the design hubs. Mostly because of the complications involved with El Nuevo Herald. And the design hubs usually incorporate at least one designer and a copy editor from the papers that join. These people still work out of their local offices --- but usually on a paper in another city.

 

How many beats does PB staff in sports? I thought they used to have a pretty good sports section.

I am also curious how much the paper is sold for. Anchorage just sold in bankruptcy for one million. I wonder how much economic value is left in a smaller paper in a large metropolitan market. If a paper like Palm Beach, in a prosperous and growing market, goes for less than 10 million the answer will be not much.

For comparison Orange County just sold for about 55 million. But the buyers was able to flip some parcels of land the Register owned for 35 million so the net cost was 20 million.

 

They don't staff the Marlins (the Herald and Sun Sentinel do) or the Panthers (Sun Sentinel still does, though not on the road). But the Post has three Dolphins beat writers and (inexplicably because the franchise's glory days are over) two Heat beat writers, and I think they still go on the road with the Heat. Like the other two South Florida papers, they staff U of Miami. It appears that they use AP and/or freelancers for the Gators and Seminoles.

Bottom line is, if McClatchy or Tronc is the buyer, there's certainly plenty of duplication that could be cut in sports -- and elsewhere (lots of middle and upper managers who will be at risk).

 

It might be pretty barren, but they still have 60 or 70 journalists, according to a Palm Beach Post photographer I hear from occasionally. They have a good investigative team, a reasonable number of news reporters, a few Biz writers, a solid web team, etc. Now, how they are being used might be a mystery.

 

I'd say this applies to all three South Florida newspapers (reading the Sunday Herald and Sun Sentinel, I'm always impressed by much of the work I see). Even after 10 years of cutbacks, there's still a surprising amount of talent remaining. Unfortunately, there aren't as many opportunities to showcase that talent, thanks to dwindling resources and mediocre corporate and newsroom leadership.

 

Amazing with all the hacking of staff on newspapers you have found room for "lots of middle and upper managers" to get the axe as well as writers because of "duplication." I find it hard to believe any newspaper still has tons of dead weight that is easy to cut. And everybody knows managers don't get cut til the bitter end. It's all writing talent, especially older writing talent that gets cut.

 

Not so fast there, Fred. Editing talent went first, along with photog talent and designer talent.