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Let's play a game: Build the staff

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Versatile, Apr 30, 2012.

  1. JRoyal

    JRoyal Well-Known Member

    Not speaking for boundforboston, but in a pro market with two major colleges in the area, high schools just aren't going to get as much news hole. Odds are, the interest is MUCH higher in most of the pros and colleges, so it's justified to pay less for high schools since it's further down the food chain in reader interest. I'm paying the best writers the most and putting them on the beats that are most important to my readers.

    Now, in some areas (like Dallas, for example), I could see more emphasis on high schools, so more pay for one person on the high school staff.
     
  2. JRoyal

    JRoyal Well-Known Member

    Six people to design and edit your section every night, working in vacations and days off? Have you ever worked a desk shift? Are you possibly in management at the Denver Post?
     
  3. boundforboston

    boundforboston Well-Known Member

    That was my thinking as well. When I read two major college programs, I thought of something along the lines of Michigan and Michigan State. Add that to the four pro sports, and high school sports won't receive much play.

    Well, I never have put together my own sports department. Kind of hard to do something you've never done before.
     
  4. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    Play time is fun!!!!!!!!!!
     
  5. expendable

    expendable Well-Known Member

    After all, they GET PAID to cover sports!
     
  6. imjustagirl

    imjustagirl Active Member

    $35K for a copy editor at a major metro is laughable.
     
  7. Mystery Meat II

    Mystery Meat II Well-Known Member

    Pshaw. If copy editors were so great, they'd be covering sports and not just editing them.
     
  8. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    So your preps editor makes more than your pro beat writers?
     
  9. I Should Coco

    I Should Coco Well-Known Member

    A serious question, not snark: why hasn't anyone mentioned photogs?

    At the Podunk Press shops I've worked at, we've had a handful of photographers for the entire newsroom, so obviously they all have to shoot everything.

    But do major metros have photographers who shoot sports full-time anymore? I believe that was true in the past, at places like the Chicago Tribune.
     
  10. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    This might be why ...

    Generally speaking, at major metropolitan papers, there are photographers who predominantly shoot sports. But they are, as far as I know, rarely considered part of the sports department.
     
  11. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    At present, my alma mater the Boston Herald, the second daily in a town where neither's doing all that well, has 2 full-time reporters for each of the four pro beats, two columnists, two GA reporters who specialize in college sports (Pro guys cover college football games too on occasion, one BC football-basketball guy, and one full-time high school reporter. Plus any number of stringers, including guys and gals who like myself were disappeared in the Great Buyout-Layoff of '05, for sports like golf, auto racing, etc.
    Don't know how many copy folks left. I imagine a fair amount.
    This is well over half of the paper's total editorial staff. There were in 2010 nine, count 'em, nine reporters left in newsside.
     
  12. I Should Coco

    I Should Coco Well-Known Member

    Got it.

    Although it would seem that in this era of budget cutbacks, photogs and the photo department are a frequent target of the bean counters' ax. And that's a damn shame.
     
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