Indy Star buyouts

Sad to see this happening, but completely predictable. And anyone who thinks we are not headed to a time when papers network to eliminate almost all road travel is naive. That day is coming much sooner than we would like to think. And then every beat writer for State U. will be trying to run down a big breaking story on his cell phone from 300 miles away because the paper won't pay to travel. Believe me, it's coming for all but a precious few papers.

 

Not to threadjack here, but I think the PD does a pretty good job covering colleges - specifically Ohio State, which is two hours away. They do a lot of good stuff with the MAC as well.

 

This might help:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1860099/posts

 

You're right. Gannett would never promote/reward an idiot to save money.

 

Yeah, having to please two sports editors for the sam pay -- some reward.

Frankly, Gannett is way behind the times on moves like this.

 

A couple of things:

1. I can't believe no one pointed this out earlier in this thread, but the Indy Star didn't go to New York last week for the NBA Draft. Never mind that that Oden character and that Conley dude are both from Indy. That to me is unbelieveable. Two of the top four picks in the draft are locals and you can't send anybody.

2. I respectfully disagree with you on this one Jersey Guy, but pulling back on the Purdue beat is a bad thing for the Indy Star. This is a paper that considers itself to be an expert in all things college sports. They like to do big theme stories on Saturday's in the fall and write about the big picture. Guess what, they ain't gonna get that from the Lafayette paper. What the Lafayette paper and what the Indy Star do are two different things. Many "college town" papers have extremely predictable coverage and are as deep as a puddle. And now that stuff is going to go in the largest paper in the state?

 

PD covers OSU with a Columbus-based reporter, Doug Lesmerises, who's quite good (no, I'm not Doug). OSU is covered above all else, and that reflects the interest of readers in NE Ohio. But the PD doesn't have a Newhouse paper in Columbus as an option. In these times, I see nothing wrong with Indy's decision.

 

The Indy Star doesn't cover Notre Dame either. Used to, both football and men's basketball, until Gannett came in and chopped. Now Purdue. If they owned the Herald-Times, they probably wouldn't send a guy to Bloomington, either, never mind the interest in IU hoops or the post-Hoeppner era in football.
And no Cavin at Watkins Glen? Sheesh. Is Ballard in Daytona for the 400, a major run-up race to the Brickyard 400, this weekend?

 

"Major run-up race to the Brickyard 400" seems to be stretching it a bit since all drivers compete in all Nextel Cup events.

 

When Gannett took over, the Indy Star had ...

Beat writers for IU, Purdue and ND (2/3 of those are gone, although David Woods was staffing ND football until the last year or two ... I saw the PU one coming, because the Star stopped sending Michael Pointer on the road a couple of years ago during basketball season).
Two columnists (at one time, it had three ... now, it's Kravitz and a second slotted columnist position has been open for several years).
A beat writer who staffed every home game of the minor league baseball & hockey teams (gone, now a handful of games are covered with stringers only, and most home games are handled with call-ins, and there is very little notebook/feature coverage of either).
Two motorsports beat writers who traveled extensively throughout the IRL, CART and NASCAR circuits (OK, one of them was a columnist who was drawing a paycheck from CART while he was writing about them and allegedly gambling on their races, but alas ...) ... now, they're cutting back on motorsports travel RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of silly season. Not going to the Glen is somewhat short-sighted given the number of Hornish-to-NASCAR stories that have been flying in the last week. While interest in the IRL isn't high, it still has a rather strong following in Indy. Then again, so does Purdue.

 

Ah, but a race at Daytona is a cut above, and besides, there's only one more race (Chicago) before Indy.

 

Chicago's a lot closer.