Job cuts at Orlando Sentinel

From what I heard, they're starting with non-essential roles.

Things like "wire editors" that only work four hours a day, etc. Things that can be done by a copy editor.

 

Associate Managing Editor/Metro Sean Holton has decided to leave the Sentinel after 20 years of distinguished service. said "Fuck it."

As a young worker, I desire to do my job better. However, I don't desire to move too high in this business, because I'd just get whacked in layoffs anyway and have to start over in Podunk. Might as well stay put and get my two percent every June.

 

Coming soon to a newsroom near you ...

All this change throughout the industry may take years to fully shake out. The scary part is, I'm pretty sure the suits involved in all these cuts at all the chains don't really have a game plan for Phase II. They say "INTERNET" as if that's a panacea for all our woes, but the fact is that it's a different media. What works for a newspaper doesn't necessarily translate online, which means that seasoned "feet on the street" (as the Sentinel memo put it) may have to learn a new skill set in order to feed the online beast.

Oh, and there's this little detail: Online sites are being artifically propped up with newspaper resources. Online sites need those "feet on the street" but it all comes out of the print budget. Take that away and make online pay for itself and the house of cards collapses.

 

BFD. They only had about nine columnists anyway. If there was a sports department and a news department that had fat to trim, it was from this paper.

 

I just can't see anybody advocating "fat to trim" in this day and age, hondo. Newpapers have trimmed a re-allocated so much, it's mind-boggling how big the dropoff in quality is from 15-20 years ago. It's turned me from a can't-get-enough newspaper junkie to a nothing-to-read-in-there-again-today skimmer.

 

It used to be a real (and cheap) pleasure to go into a new town and spend a half-hour reading the new-to-me newspaper. Now I struggle to spend that much time with my (shrinking) product.

 

One of my favorite sections, but The Sentinel has long been an example of a paper that spends money like it will never run out... I remember at one point, there were 10 assistant/deputy sports editors... I don't think that's the case now, but I don't know...

I don't ever like to hear about cuts, but I'm guessing Orlando has some fat it can trim...

 

It's easy to do that when you have enormous resources but don't have the burden of having to send one or more people on the road for 40 NHL games or 81 major league baseball games or 10+ NFL games . . . and you also don't have to clear the space needed for these staples.

No pun intended, but it was truly a Disney-esque existence. We can act major league, without really having to be major league.

 

My impression is that Orlando is being a little less silly than Atlanta in "reorganizing." Has anyone heard more about what is going on at the AJC?

 

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but heard one of the cuts is Florida preps legend Bill Buchalter. What an effing shame. Pretty tragic.
One of the really, really, really good guys in the biz. I know that line gets really, really, really stale sometimes, but with Bill there's no doubt about it.
Love my conversations, be it phone or in person like last week at the state track meet, with him. Here's his bio from the Sentinel's Varsity (their preps site) Blog:
Bill Buchalter is in his fourth decade of covering sports in Florida including his 39th at the Orlando Sentinel. He has covered everything from Little League baseball to seven Olympic games. For the past 20 years he has focused on high school sports in Central Florida especially recruiting of college football prospects. You can see Buchalter on the Orlando Sentinel High School Sports Saturdays on WESH-TV, listen to him on Plugged In, available here or read his Varsity notebook on Thursdays in Varsity The Weekly.

 

This is true. I've worked a few places that got slammed for not having some of the bells and whistles, but if you are in a busy market there is a lot more you have to cover because readers demand it.

 

I didn't think there were cuts. I thought there were voluntary buyouts. Does that mean Buchalter is taking one of his own free will?

I think anyone who covers preps for any amount of time has to know Buchalter.