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Gatehouse and the Super Bowl

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Moderator1, Jan 21, 2008.

  1. VJ

    VJ Member

    Did the Gatehouse beat guys travel with the Patriots on the road during the season?
     
  2. I don't think so, but they have traveled in the past to playoffs/Super Bowl
     
  3. Read and weep

    Read and weep Member

    First off, I hate to ever side with a cut-rate company like Gatehouse, but....
    looking at the circs of those papers and (I know I shouldn't generalize) knowing the kind of staffs normally at papers that size, is the AP copy or other wire copy going to be a big step down in quality? Sad to say, but I doubt it.
     
  4. wickedwritah

    wickedwritah Guest

    The papers are in a major metropolitan area (except for Norwich). They attract quality staff, since many people are there for reasons that go beyond the circ figures.
     
  5. hockeybeat

    hockeybeat Guest

    Remarkably short-sighted and stupid.
     
  6. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    There comes a point where you wonder if failure isn't the actual game plan. I've never met a business person who really believed that offering lousier product for the same money would make money. That is how the newspaper industry business plan. I know bosses are aggravating, but they're not that stupid. It may be that free market capitalism and journalism are simply incompatible,
     
  7. Mediator

    Mediator Member

    Sometimes editors can make the checkbooks understand why you send the beat writer. Find someone from the area going to the game, explain that none of his or her neighbors are going to be able to read stories with that POV. Pitch specific stories with a local angle, anything to show exactly what your readers will gain from focused writing.

    I know it isn't always that simple, but there is still time if your credentials are in order.

    As someone who really believes in this business, I have to hope that there is still time to show the suits that there is more to be gained by improving the paper.
     
  8. Read and weep

    Read and weep Member

    Look, I' not trying to offend anyone or any paper, but are you telling me that the writers at the 19,000/day Fall River Herald News are better than the NFL beat writers for the AP? I doubt it. The readers will not notice whether the local writer or the AP is writing the stories. They will, however, notice when local stories go unwritten because the guy is in Arizona covering the Super Bowl for a week and not back in Fall River covering the local high school. Can't imagine those papers have big enough staffs to accommodate someone going off for a week.
     
  9. wickedwritah

    wickedwritah Guest

    1. Fall River doesn't cover the Pats in-house.
    2. Usually Quincy, Brockton (I understand its union contract mandates that pro coverage be staff-generated if it runs non-wire copy) and Framingham/MetroWest staff at least home games. As of a couple years ago, Quincy covered AFC East road games. MetroWest did, too, when Tom Curran was there.
    3. Readers DO notice that the paper can't send at least one reporter to Arizona for the biggest sports story seen in professional sports in a decade, if not more. A team is on the brink of going undefeated in a major pro sport for the first time since the 1972 Dolphins. It's a major story.
    4. The Boston Herald is bleeding just as much as the above papers, if not moreso.
    5. The (Attleboro) Sun-Chronicle probably will staff it, if I had to guess, and Attleboro's circulation -- 17,852 weekdays, according to ABC -- is about 1/10th the combined circulation of the aforementioned papers.
     
  10. BillyT

    BillyT Active Member

    OK, can someone help with with some basic background?

    (I am sorry if I sound dense, please be kind. I have been out of the loop for a while, and when I was in the area, Norwich was a Gannett paper anyway).

    When you say Gatehouse is not sending its staffers, does Gatehouse actually have a staff beyond the newspapers it owns?

    If some of their papers are going, and that stuff can be distributed through Gatehouse, how is that different than having a Gatehouse guy there?
     
  11. Seahawk

    Seahawk Member

    This is incredibly bad. Farley is one of the class guys you could meet, and yes, he was the pool reporter for the Patriots for a long time. McHugh is one of the underrated guys covering the team. I would also imagine this means no Megliola there for the MetroWest.

    Just a sad, sad decision. As a former staffer in Framingham, this was depressing to read. The MetroWest is where Curran (NBC) got his start, and it was the stomping ground for Mike Reiss (Globe), John Thomase (Herald) and Bert Breer (Dallas Morning News) as well. A lot of talent has worked its way through those doors.
     
  12. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    Let's look at this as a straight business proposition. Home team in Super Bowl. To save roughly $4000 bucks, if that, you run a week of wire copy.
    Know where your readers can find Super Bowl wire copy? On Yahoo. On Google. For nothing.
    If your reporter's coverage adds nothing to the customers' understanding of the Patriots, then you shouldn't cover the team at all. That'd be stupid too, but at least it'd be intellectually honest stupidity.
     
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