More MG News

How do they expect us to take anything they say seriously when they send out that memo in the morning and then this news trickles out of Danville today? How is this serving that local market?

 

Let me jump in on this, since I just saw my name in this thread and at this point, I guess it doesn't matter if I'm outing myself. Some of the people who have posted already know who I am anyway.
This is Paul Long and I came to Danville in mid-October as Drew's replacement, although you can't really replace somebody who's an institution in his hometown. But anyway, yes, my position has been eliminated, effective April 6, and now I have to compete with my two writers for one of the two sports writer positions. (basically three people going for two spots) Or I can rely on my five-plus years of experience on the news side and go after one of the nine available reporter positions between Rockingham County and Danville. The numbers seem to favor that move, since there are only three people currently working as news reporters between the two officers. One of the displaced deskers, and one of the displaced editors, could wind up pursuing these openings, but there should be enough to go around. We'll see.
It goes without saying that I would have stayed at the cozy little 9,000-circ daily I was working at near Charlotte if I'd seen this coming six months ago. But really, who thought the industry would fall this far, this fast?

 

It should be pointed out that the Danville sports department has a tremendous recent history, winning a bunch of VPA awards, including second place and third place for best sports pages the last two years, and a pair of APSE writing awards.

There were four in the department less than a year ago, a total that was reduced to just two reporters and no editor for several months because of voluntary departures, until the SE spot was filled in October. The three-man Danville sports department has been laying out the Eden and Reidsville sports sections, in addition to their own, ever since.

 

Well, the good news that can come out of this is that someone can apply for multiple positions since there really are not many people within the three papers to fill all the positions that are in the reorganized desks. A sports writer can apply for the sports position and for the news reporter position and vice versa.

Six new reporter positions are being created to help cover the local area. There are three current reporters for the four papers (2 in Danville and 1 for Reidsville, Eden and don't forget the weekly Madison paper). Five reporters will cover Danville and four will cover the Rockingham area, totaling nine reporters that will provide content.

And yes, the Danville sports department has a tremendous history. In the past two years, the paper has finished second and third in VPA awards (2007 - second for general make-up and special section; 2008 - third in both categories). Plus, good ol' Wonderlic has made the cut for a second consecutive APSE award in the under 40,000. But, what will happen is two reporters will cover six local schools, unless the regional SE has other plans for coverage. That remains to be seen.

Interviews for those positions (11 in the Danville newsroom, six in the Rockingham newsroom) will take place the next three days and then the announcement gets to wait until April 6. Probably the worst two weeks to do this with Martinsville weekend upon us.

 

And now the entire staff has officially weighed in. Well put, Statman. Hopefully whichever one of us is left out of the sports mix will land on their feet on the news side.

 

Or, get stuck as copy editor for the four sports sections in Lynchburg. :'(

Not to mention, no one on the current copy desk in Danville wants to work in Lynchburg. There goes four jobs out the window right there.

 

Thank you. I hadn't even considered going after one of the copy editor gigs. But Lynchburg works better for me because it's an hour closer to my family up north. I'll have to ask him about that tomorrow. Oh yeah, I'd definitely prefer that to covering school boards and crime again.

 

Obviously, we're still trying to wrap our brains around this up in Lynchburg too. If any of the Danville guys want to PM me, I'll do what I can to fill people in. But I pretty much know what's been posted thus far.

 

Well, there goes any hope I had of a triumphant return to Danville, riding on a donkey down Riverside Drive.

 

I have to say, I never thought I'd see the words "triumphant" and "Danville" in the same sentence. Well done. ;D

 

Lucky for the guys in Lynchburg, your jobs are still in tact. And like what has been done in the past, it looks like we'll continue helping each other out in terms of content.

In another interesting tidbit, it was overheard that if a reporter keeps his/her position, the pay should not change. I think that is laughable, but if someone can get a title reduction and keep his/her pay, that is something that MG is doing right.

 

Oh, I'd love it if my pay wouldn't change. I stand to lose about $10K in this...and that's if I'm "lucky" enough to remain employed by the magnanimous folks at MG.