Southern RI-based Indepedent Newspaper group guts staff.

In some ways I am lucky, because my publisher (who is directly above me) has lived in town all his life and cares passionately about the hometown paper, one of two paid. He's always re-reading and making comments. He strikes a good balance between the bottom line and the news staff.

He cares somewhat about the other paid daily (town 10 miles away) and cares even more about hte western Vermont freebie that covers the areas closest to us.

In general, he's very interested in a good product.

That's good, but it also means more scrutiny.

 

Man, sorry to hear, schiezainc. Sucks for all of those involved. Not sure if it's his area, but I hope Rhody wasn't caught up in this, too.

 

Matt - the paper is Schieza's and my competitor.

 

Gotchya.

 

There are an awful lot of newspapers in Rhode Island. More papers than exits on I-95.

 

I wish I could say it's because we're an intelligent group of people but ... we're not.

 

I haven't ever found this to be true. In the most egregious cases, the owner decides we own this market, so why spend money.

Even if that doesn't happen, you lose (or rather the top managers lose) some objective measurements. An editor would have to be severely delusional to not notice when the other paper breaks news, has a stronger display, has fewer mistakes, gets a lot more feedback from readers, etc. Even if you won most of the time, losing once in a while prevented overconfidence. In a vacuum, it is considerably easier to not notice flaws, particularly in staffers they happen to like. Everything becomes a bit more subjective.

You never gain as many of their readers and advertisers as you'd expect, either. A large portion of the other guy's circulation is composed of readers who simply hate you so much that were willing to subscribe to an inferior product out of pure spite. They ain't moving over if the other paper folds.

 

Frank, you've made more strong posts than anyone in my experience here, and this one rings the truest of them all. Exactly what happened when I was at a paper than lived when a competitor died.

 

And it's exactly what metrics suggest to me. Ironically, the more outlets and competition in an area, typically, the better a Patch site does.

 

I can definitely see a lot of valid points in this argument but, at the end of the day, this news gives my company the chance (key words: the chance) to take advantage.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't expect them to do anything differently. They sure as hell aren't going to spend any more money. But with these guys moving their office to Newport, it would be a smart idea for our company to tout the fact that we're the only local newspaper in our local towns.

Again, feel bad on a personal level but professionally? As long as the layoffs aren't happening to us--we had our gutting four years ago--it's a good thing.

 

A good friend of mine worked in the Wakefield office back in the early 90s, I think. He introduced me to the Italian Village restaurant right across the street, and since that day 10 years ago I have no problems making the hour ride for a meal.

 

I think you're thinking of our office, which is located across the street from there.

Of course, you could be thinking of another place all together because the handful of times I've gone to the Italian Village, it's sucked BIG TIME.