More cuts from McClatchy

So far, it's The Sun News in Myrtle Beach, S.C., with:

And the Bellingham Herald in the NW corner of Washington with a meeting at 3 p.m. PST.

I'd expect the rest of the Northwest papers (Tacoma, Olympia and the Tri-Cities) to have their directives by the end of the week if B-ham is getting its today.

Raleigh, N.C., will apparently be later this month.

 

Myrtle Beach:

 

McClatchy Watch Web site is reporting layoffs of 8 full-time, 2 part-time in Bellingham, plus a 2.5% pay cut for those in the 25K-50K range. More news coming.

 

Bellingham lost three full-timers in the newsroom (a photographer, a sports copy editor and a special projects editor) and two part-time photo clerks.

 

AIG loses $62 billion in one quarter, and you're actually shocked and ticked off that newspapers are making cuts like this?

Look around you, man.

 

uh, yeah, we are because, you know, we actually work in this fucking profession.

 

Not "a" sports columnist. "The" sports columnist.
Congratulations, McClatchy, on officially gutting another section. This is what Myrtle Beach, an approximate 45k circ, is now left with sports after columnist Sean Horgan got the ax:

Sports editor -- In the last week also took over the prep beat (17 or so schools) after the paper wasn't allowed to hire a prep writer.
ASE -- A younger guy who, like the SE, also busts his ass simply to get the section out every night and has been at the paper for a few years.
Golf beat writer -- IMO the best journo in the newsroom, who recently has been essentially golf, GA and helping out on the college basketball beat (may not sound bad, except in Myrtle golf drives everything and is more than a full-time job on its own). Great reporter, still needs days off.
CCU beat writer -- Best way to describe him is what the SE, my former boss told me once: "He'll be our boss some day." Hell of a reporter. Also still not Super man.
Two full-time deskers.
Essentially two freelancers.

Since August 2007, the paper has not replaced the three writers who have left, including myself. One position was helped by a shift from the new side, and the other two, both in the last 11 months, haven't been touched. The current columnist position (a guy who was also helping out on the occassional GA assignment) surely won't be replaced, either.
How the paper, with two full-time writers, expects to cover golf, a DI university, those 17 or so high schools, the Single-A affiliate of the Atlanta Braves, the occassional NASCAR race or the myriad various other things that come up, I have no idea.

 

Oh, come now. They'll just do more with less.
(never have been able to figure out the blue font)

 

Most 45K sports sections Podunk has worked for had either four or five full-time sports staffers -- copy editors included.

So while I hate the gutting of this product, and my personal job security ain't the greatest, Myrtle Beach has a decent sized staff for a paper its size.