It's official: No more sports at Washington Times

This was the story:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/23/russia-georgia-readying-end-to-blockade/

Byline reads The Washington Times, not For The Washington Times or Special to the Washington Times. So I assumed it was a staff writer.

 

Clayton is definitely a stringer, fwiw. TWT has a policy by which regular or exclusive stringers get a straight "The Washington Times" byline instead of the "Special To The TWT" that most of our stringers get. We have a couple guys -- running columnist, part time writers -- who get that treatment, but everyone else gets a "Special To The ..."

As for our sports department, we've still been given no official word, nothing on paper (or e-mail), that says when our last day is or when we're publishing our last issue of sports. However you are correct, we are not traveling to San Diego for the Redskins regular season finale.

The official releases have said that TWT is launching its new product/direction or whatever on Monday [ here is your link from our Web site ] but no one I know in the newsroom seems to know exactly what that product is.

 

Thanks for that clarification, John. I remember I got a "Special to" when I used to write for them back in the day...thus my confusion.

 

I worked with Mark Hartsell at the Dallas Time Herald, circa 1990.
Neither of us was on the sports desk at the time.
Mark's a class act and I wish him and the others under the gun there all the best.

 

Hang in there John.

 

So, John, does this mean it is definite there will be a "last day?" Have you been informed sports is on the way out and you're just waiting for word on when? Or is the department's existence still up in the air? I'd like to think there's still a chance they'll come to their senses.

Either way, I just want to let you know I'm rooting for you and Mark and Elfin and all the guys up there I've worked with so many times. Thanks for keeping us posted and good luck with whatever happens.

 

Nice move by Boudreau, thanking the Times' Caps beat guy...plus, a mention of this site.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/29/AR2009122902804.html?hpid=moreheadlines

 

Postie Dan Steinberg also talking about the apparent demise of the Times' sports coverage on his blog this morning; he's quite complimentary of the competition.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog/2009/12/goodbye_to_the_times_sports_se.html

 

Given the way this is being handled, is there any chance the final sports section is a commemorative-type thing? Or will it even be acknowledged?

 

I hope that's some insanely bad joke. If not...

I'll echo what others have said, but I've also met a number of people/know people at The Washington Times. I guess you don't even need half a brain to be a newspaper publisher...

 

There's a big package coming, yet we still haven't been officially told that Thursday for Friday is it.