Ohio Community Media decides it just doesn't care anymore

This group runs a few dozen small-town newspapers throughout Ohio. They're doing this with one of the papers, sure to follow with the others:

http://galionlive.com/2011/09/27/changes-at-ohio-community-media/

One publisher's column announcing this was along the lines of ...

 

All of this fallout from the Brown Publishing bankruptcy.
They just keep closing printing plants in the state. In know the Cinci Enquirer has or is shuttering theirs, Mansfield was shut down earlier this year now a number of OCM presses are gone. We're printing nine, yes, nine daily papers on our press. Seven of the papers are owned by other companies.

 

Talk about expediting the death of print...

 

Sez you. I can't wait to rush out Tuesday morning to see who won Friday's game.

 

Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

 

At least they have the stones to admit it, unlike a lot of other papers/chains that feed the public this "our coverage won't be affected one bit" BS ...

 

That's true, though. The coverage is not affected. It's just when you can read it's that affected.

 

It's also an indictment of the value of HS football coverage as a driver of newspaper sales, at least in small-town Ohio where you would think it important.

 

At the last daily I was at, we had no Saturday or Sunday paper. We would do Friday night web updates for football, then try to cram as many pics in as possible with our gamers in the Monday paper. Of course, that means advertising has to give you the space because there is also pro football, college football, MLB and everything else from the weekend to cram in.
I'm not sure how this paper in Ohio does it, or what the staffing level is, or how early the deadline is. But I would try to get at least a picture in the Saturday paper (if you have a dedicated photog, have that person come in at half) and the scores, then run a blurb encouraging readers to check out the Tuesday edition for a complete recap and photos.

 

Not a good situation, but as a prep writer it would be a unique challenge to write a gamer every week good enough to be a must-read three days later. It'd be fun to have a magazine writer's perspective about a high school football game.

 

I was born in galion. My dad played high school football there. We left when I was five but I still remember reading the inquirer when we would go back to visit in the summer. it's a typical small-town paper from what I remember.
that's all i got.

 

The paper might have been better off to just kill its Saturday edition if that's going to be the case.