St. Pete, err, Tampa Bay Times, cuts pay, people

Re: St. Pete cuts pay, people

Anyone doesn't like it, they can be reminded that at least they're not at the Tampa Tribune.

 

Re: St. Pete cuts pay, people

Yeah no kidding... I'm still stunned the Tribune is still publishing, and may only be doing so because they're hoping the Times buys it so it can fold it.

 

Re: St. Pete cuts pay, people

Just saw the other thread...

 

Re: St. Pete cuts pay, people

Can't say I'm surprised, but Romano (Times) wrote a World Series column from his couch. Ouch.
Wonder if Shelton will fly to London for a Bucs game column.

 

Re: St. Pete cuts pay, people

Have to give the Tribune credit on that front ... they've had people in England all week. That fact proved fortuitous while covering the Dan Wheldon story.

 

Re: St. Pete cuts pay, people

Same reason they go to the Masters, Wimbledon, US Open, Super Bowl, etc., etc. It's what big papers do.
Or did. Some still do. LA Times had no teams in the playoffs but is at the World Series. Same with Chicago Trib.
Sure Times guys weren't happy about it, but maybe they haven't been going to these events.
I know my guys would get pissed when I started telling them we weren't.

People or person in England? I don't read the Tampa Trib every day any more.

 

Re: St. Pete cuts pay, people

Couch columns off live events should be prohibited.

 

Re: St. Pete cuts pay, people

Papers are usually pretty good about making sure they're covered when it comes to the NFL.

 

Re: St. Pete cuts pay, people

My last paper started doing more and more couch columns on NFL night games, sending three guys instead of four or five. Bothered me at first, but honestly, I was hard pressed to notice a tangible difference in the quality.
Never thought I'd say that. But you look at things differently when you're writing the checks (or, in my case, helping to decide how to maximize our diminishing travel budget).
A deadline column is a deadline column (which is one reason I'd like to see APSE take that into account. East Coast papers are at a natural disadvantage on NCAA final, World Series, Super Bowl, BCS title game, etc...but that's a whole nutha discussion.)
We also occasionally wrote college basketball gamers off TV. Always without a byline. Again, never thought I'd see that as anything other than a worst-case scenario, but the fact was our beat writer watching and getting quotes still produced a story 100 times more insightful than AP or, heaven help us, a stringer would have.
And this paper is an annual APSE big boy circ section winner ...
You do what you gotta do.

 

Re: St. Pete cuts pay, people

If you do no byline, I don't have a problem with it.

I know there are countless papers that have someone at home do things like "Play of the Game" or crap like that, and I don't have a huge problem with that.

Having a columnist write from his couch on a game that is being played elsewhere is unethical. Most of the readers don't understand datelines and they assume he's at the game.

How hard is it to run a column off the wire?

I understand saving money. If you can't afford to send him to the WS, that's fine and I understand and respect that, but you don't try to make it look like he's there. It's not like there is some kind of pressing need for St. Pete to have a columnist presence from the World Series.

 

Re: St. Pete cuts pay, people

The dying paper I worked for late 1970s, early 1980s traveled only for the NFL and baseball postseason, so MLB road coverage was wire. And we had no AP, just UPI. We'd have somebody watch TV so we'd have more than five paragraphs (although eventually we lost so many bodies that we couldn't afford to do even that much). And there was a bit more insight than we would have gotten from a story focused on the opposing team because even if the beat writer was off, we all kept up with the local pros.

Anyway, we had this guy on staff who was a slob. And the Salvation Army-quality TV in the sports department broke. News-side didn't have any type of TV. Well, we figured, there is a TV in the publisher's office and he'd long since gone home. Pretty nice TV, as it turned out, and a nice office, too, at least compared with the rest of our shithole.

Someone let the slob in. He brought a bucket of KFC with him and started gnawing away. Next day, publisher comes in and sees a bunch of chicken bones, like an animal sacrifice. When he tried to call security, the phone was greasy.

They got us a black-and-white 19-incher, pronto.