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RIP: Agate in LAT sports pages

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by TigerVols, Feb 21, 2013.

  1. TigerVols

    TigerVols Well-Known Member

    The paper is trimming 8 pages from sports each week; much of that in the form of agate.

    http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2013/02/la_times_to_cut_tv_grid_s.php
     
  2. SnarkShark

    SnarkShark Well-Known Member

    Not really bothered a whole lot by the loss of agates, unless it involves preps or local colleges that wouldn't normally get coverage with a full story. All those statistics are easily found online and if you care about them, you would probably look them up long before the paper is delivered to your doorstep.

    I'm more concerned with the "shorter stories."
     
  3. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

    Agate was always the first thing I read in sports.
     
  4. HejiraHenry

    HejiraHenry Well-Known Member

    This is in response to new "agate tax" in California. Many of these agate pages will be moving to Texas.
     
  5. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    Agate is a huge part of why many people read the sports section. Newspaper reading is a habit, like smoking (alas, less addictive). Many of the Times' customers read the agate in the paper rather than looking it up online. They will now be unhappier customers, and eventually ex-customers. It is NEVER a good decision to give the customer less value for their money.
     
  6. DanOregon

    DanOregon Well-Known Member

    First they came for the agate, and I said nothing...
     
  7. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    respectfully disagree. I use the space to give them more copy. I still read a lot of papers and never read agate anymore, it's all available in so many places. Can't remember the last time I read a box score in a newspaper. The vast majority of those who are interested read it online, usually before they go to bed.

    I would have said this is crazy five years ago. Kind of like getting rid of the stock tables back when that was done.

    Now? Good on 'em. Welcome to the no-agate club.
     
  8. DanOregon

    DanOregon Well-Known Member

    I grew up an agate junkie (especially transactions), and still love trying to figure out why a game was won or lost based on a box score (free throws, third-down conversions, LOB) - and lets be honest, it is the one part of the paper that is not subject to bias.
    But with readership getting older and space constraints being what they are (even though agate packs more info per column inch than any part of the paper), editors are stuck. It's really hard to run partial agate pages. Some box scores and not others and you really can't shrink them any more than they have been. As long as it is available on-line (where readers can always bump up the size of the type), I don't see a problem. Don't know many papers that run complete stocks and bonds pages anymore either.
     
  9. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    Several newspapers have tried to scale back or entirely cut agate, and the readers have revolted quickly enough to send the managers running back with their tails between their legs.

    The Seattle Times is one off the top of my head: http://bit.ly/VQZYMj
     
  10. PCLoadLetter

    PCLoadLetter Well-Known Member

    I can go either way on the agate debate; I used to read it and no longer do because it's generally on the internet, and I'm sure that's common.

    But I grew up reading the LA Times sports section religiously. It's one of the reasons I went into journalism. Guys like Steve Harvey and Chris Baker were role models to me and helped me greatly on a personal level when I was a student journalist.

    Now when I visit the sports section is not even a shadow of its former self and shockingly thin. They're dropping 8 pages a week from that? That's horrible.
     
  11. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

    What, so they can have a 40-inch prep roundup with 32 1-sentence items?

    You get more bang for your buck with a full page of agate. Save the words for the Web.
     
  12. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    Does the Los Angeles Times even devote that much space to high schools?
     
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