Hartford Courant ditches last pro beat....

That's always been the case. I don't think they've ever staffed Mets games, aside from the occassional column.

 

They finally stopped covering Whalers.

 

This is another case of a paper not transitioning to the Web, but trying to survive on the cheap as a newspaper.

 

Gee that's the spirit. We cant "beat" the NY and Boston writers so shit, we won't try. We don't need to cover the pros.
We need to dumb down our paper and cut pages and beats. That's the ticket (old, bad TV reference I know). Gee that's a good way to sell papers. Cut, cut. Yeah we'll do a better job of covering colleges, sure we will.
Bye bye Courant. Just another one biting the dust.

 

Yeah, buddy... RIP.

 

In this day and age, it might be the way to do it to save jobs and money.

It's the same question mid-level papers are asking themselves now. Do they just stop covering the pro team and go the AP route? Do you cede the breaking news and analysis to the "big dog" papers and focus more on stuff they can't give your readers? Playing Devil's Advocate and trying not to sound like a beancounter, but going "more local" is an option?

Personally, I think that paper needs to have that "big" presence, but eventually the people are going to be looking at buyouts and ways to save money. Only natural - since, as one of the few things Mariotti ranted about was the fact that nobody under 30 (or 40, for that matter) is buying a newspaper anymore. In that vein, the higher-ups look at the fact people are going to the bigger papers and their better websites for pro news - so they shift focus on local colleges and preps.

It's an option. Hartford is lucky to have a rabid college fanbase they can cover the hell out of now.

I'm just scattered. My wife had a dinner party tonight with some friends and they started the whole "bad outlook for newspapers" crap. It's all just depressing as hell.

 

Yes but Hartford always has covered the hell out of UConn. How much more can or should they do? I think this paper will soon RIP.

 

The sad thing is the Courant was, at one point, ahead of the curve with CTNow.com (I think that was the name of its site...things were going so well it sponsored the amphitheatre in Hartford). Before Zell took a giant shit on everything, the Courant was one of those papers that actually had a web presence as well as an ability to maximize its dwindling resources in print.

It's a shame.

 

Since the Whalers blew town, it's all they've got.

Connecticut's an Eastern version of Nebraska football, when there was Nebraska Football.

 

UConn hoops doesn't even get the coverage it once did. Whereas you once had a solid-sized group of reporters on the road at every game, it's dwindling. Some places aren't even sending their people to Providence anymore. (Yes, ridiculous, I know.)

 

But Michael, Jeff Jacoby was always so much fun to read.

 

Exactly. How can anybody argue with this person's astute statement?
Sports editors? Publishers? Apologists care to comment?