New York Times newsroom cuts

Road stringers, anyone? I know a few good ones ..

 

I personally don't consider the Times my go-to source for New York news.

And I don't think too many New Yorkers view Newsday as their paper. They pretty much cover Long Island and that's it these days. Rarely do you see Newsday on the newsstands.

I'd guess as a sports fan most are probably daily readers of the Post or Daily News who pick up the Times on Sunday.

 

Moddy, my resume will be sent to you shortly.

There are some good compromises. My current shop insists on sharing rooms to save costs, so we like to do things like look for multi-bedroom suites at a Residence Inn. You can get rates that are often less than double a single room and often close to a single-room rate and everybody can have a degree of privacy mixed with a common area that is good for collaborative work reasons. The only issue is there's usually one desk and office chair, but that's OK, because the breakfast table also works great as a desk.

Another thing is be wise about the need for convenience to venue. For example, in a city I travel to often, the New Orleans Aiprort Fairfield is cheap for a tourist town and right on I-10 in Kenner, which puts you to the Superdome in 15 minutes if traffic isn't heavy. You don't need to be in the CBD or the Quarter paying those rates (plus parking). Now, if it's the Sugar Bowl, that's when you try to get into the media hotel for obvious reasons (daily news conferences in the hotel, etc.). But if you are just in town for a Saints or Tulane game (who goes to those any more anyway?) I don't think you need to dive in with the tourists.

That's just one example. There are many.

Another thing: Doesn't Hotels.com offer its own rewards program now? Anybody use it? I haven't started using theirs yet, but I may.

 

In my opinion, beat guys, especially those covering MLB, should be afforded the luxury of staying in a first-rate hotel with the team. Many times, especially in baseball, the better stories are gathered on the road.
The days of sending 3 and 4 guys out on a trip every month are gone. But they were good while they lasted.

 

I'm a Yankees and Knicks fan. (I don't like hockey or teams based in New Jersey.) The Times is my primary source for Yankees and Knicks coverage. I've been let down so far by David Waldstein, who I don't think matches Ben Shpigel or Tyler Kepner on the Yankees beat, but I do like Howard Beck quite a bit on the Knicks.

The Times generally is far more intelligent and better written than the other papers based in New York City. I go more often to The Star-Ledger (Mark Carig is wonderful on the Yankees beat) and Newsday (ditto to Alan Hahn on the NBA) than the tabloids for sports news.

 

FYI, this round of cuts/attrition is on the business side, with voluntary buyouts on the news side.

 

I could be mistaken - and maybe things have changed - but as of two years ago Carig was writing only for NJ.com. In the print product the Star-Ledger was using Mark Feinsand's Yankees copy (Daily News) as part of a content-sharing agreement between the News, S-L and Albany Times Union. Maybe the partnership has run its course and Marc is writing for the S-L print edition also now.

 

I was with IJAG on thinking this was way too low when I first read it, but obviously (I think), you're not including writer salaries in here.

 

I thought WSJ had full sports coverage in its local section and on its website. I only get the national edition, so I only see the one page section per day, but I thought they had actual beat writers.

If that one page is all the sports they put out, that means those writers are only doing 1-2 stories per week, right?

 

The pro and major college teams make travel a lot cheaper by getting the team or media rate at hotels.

When else can you stay at the Ritz-Carlton in DC for $119 a night?