Screamin' A. gets whacked

SAS fires back ...

"I put my life and all that I have into the Philadelphia Inquirer first as a reporter and then as a general columnist."

http://www.maynardije.org/columns/dickprince/080201_prince/

 

He put his heart and soul into each of the columns he wrote once a month over the last few years...

If someone here has access to Lexis/Nexis, I'd love to get a byline count for 2007... My over/under is 30...

 

There's no way he had as many bylines in one year as he had TV and radio appearances in one month.

 

I'd be really curious what the number is... Our lead columnist writes 180 columns a year, which I would think is pretty standard, about four times a week, minus vacation, plus events where they're writing every day (Super Bowl, Olympics etc...)

 

I count 71 SAS bylines from '07. Yep, surprised me, too.

Does anyone truly believe that people actually BUY a copy of a newspaper these days to read one columnist, as opposed to reading the writer's column online?

 

71 columns in 2007
80 columns in 2006
97 columns in 2005

 

Yep, that's how you "put (your) life and all that (you) have into the Philadelphia Inquirer."

 

During certain parts of the season, I write close to that many in a month... Granted, a lot are notebooks, but still...

The 80 in 2006 amazes me the most... That's with the local football team playing in the Super Bowl, where he should be writing every day for at least two weeks...

 

There are a few relevant bits of information that would illuminate this situation ...
First, Smith was encouraged to pursue his TV career and rewarded heavily for it by the previous regime at the Inquirer. The belief then was that his ESPN affiliation would bring exposure and -- through some unexplained magic -- additional readers to the paper. When Smith got "Quite Frankly," he cut a deal with the paper that allowed him to work fulltime for ESPN while writing about 70 columns per year for the Inquirer. Those numbers are consistent with that.
The people in charge during those years -- from Knight-Ridder to publisher Joe Natoli to editor Amanda Bennett to managing editor Anne Gordon to sports editor Jim Jenks -- are all gone. The entire chain of command is different.
Since the near strike and layoffs of 12-15 months ago, things have changed. Start cutting jobs and sweetheart deals like Smith's don't seem so brilliant anymore. The new regime doesn't buy into the benefits of having staffers who really work fulltime for TV or anyone else. The stress is on value to the paper that is published every day, and to the Web site. Smith's stance suggests that he is the victim of hypocrisy, that he is being punished now for what he was rewarded for in the past. The missing element is all the change. It isn't the same people turning against him. It's new people dealing with the downturn in our industry.
Just trying to clear this up a bit...

 

That's very consistent with what other big papers have done to keep big-time columnists around... Good info Zeemer...

 

This is the inescapable quandary that's sucking the life out of print circulation. I can't think of another industry that charged for its product on one hand, yet simultaneously offered it for free on the other hand.

Historians will shake their heads at our demise and wonder: "What were they thinking?"