Semi-confirmed: Media General to consolidate copy desks

As one of the soon-to-be deceased, that is my general hope. (Not that I'm wishing bad things for those that make the move, mind you.)

We were told, in separate private meetings with our EE, that as of late February, our jobs will be moved. No firm date yet, but late February for certain.

 

My guess is that you're correct; or at least in the latter stages of it. But that's just a guess.

 

What about Danville?

 

They've been designed at Lynchburg for a few months, close to a year, correct?

 

Oh that's right. I still shake my head in amazement about how MG gutted a good newspaper. No, check that. I'm not surprised.

 

As it relates to the Trib...does this include sports? Sharing national news, wire copy we all use makes sense on some levels. Many chains share pages. Orlando gets its baseball page from S-S. Just pushes a button, and there it is. Done.
Will Trib guys have the option of relocating? Seems unfair, unrealistic to expect a W-S desker to contribute anything of value to a Rays game package landing on deadline. Or is this just another sign the Trib no longer competes with St. Pete? Shep has to be loving this.

 

If it goes down anything like it did for MG's paper in Danville, I believe people were given the opportunity to relocate, but most had to basically re-apply for their jobs because some positions were reorganized or consolidated. But that could be a different story with some papers because of proximity. Danville is only an hour from Lynchburg, where the desk operations were moved.

As for having people with no ties to your area putting out your paper from afar, don't expect much TLC. If the people doing the work have little association or familiarity with the product they are putting out, they'll more than likely not put as much thought into it and it will show with lazy, generic headlines or questionable story placement. Some of that will also be the end result of shared pages. It's not so much a knock on those putting the product together as it is just human nature. If people have a tie to something, they're more likely to care more about it.

 

Too early in the process to tell ... I'm sure it all depends where they base the operation. If it's a regional consolidation, it might be moot as far as Tampa goes. If the big papers combine, I think it's a fair bet that there'd be some opportunities to relocate.

In related news, another well-placed source offers this tidbit: Consolidation already would have happened except the computer systems used by the individual papers are incompatible. Which means MG is now weighing the cost savings of consolidation vs. capital expense of purchasing a common production system.

 

This is like having the framers do the roofers' jobs on a permanent basis. And vice-versa. Anyone who's worked a shift in either trench knows how infinitely stupid the idea is.

I can remember a news desker once calling over and asking if football was two words for the teez. No joke.

 

we Alabama folk keep being told it won't happen until late summer at the earliest for us. but that could be a lie.

 

Since we're talking MG, I've heard nothing so far about furloughs in the first quarter of 2010, but there's a Marshall Morton teleconference scheduled for Jan. 28 to discuss the fourth quarter, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if they announced more for this quarter at that date.