Tampa reaction: Not good

Ever meet the Energizer Bunny? That's Gene. He's a hyper guy but his heart is in the right place Mizzou.
When there were two papers in Jacksonville, he was a relentless scribe. He's not easy to get to know but I respect his work ethic. He hustles and that means a lot in this business.

 

I don't doubt any of that.

 

Well, I will say this on the topic: Where I live, the morning metro had a massive Friday sports section crammed full of locally produced copy (and hardly any ads to pay the freight), from a department that didn't feel anywhere close to the pain imposed on other departments in a recent round of cutting-and-slashing. The news and business sections of the paper, during the Presidential campaign and a stock market crisis and some fascinating local stories of corporate malfeasance, had bare-bones coverage and heavy use of WSJ and NYT copy.

It seemed out of proportion, frankly. And as escapist as I want to be, having recently glanced at my 401K balance, I felt like a loser turning page after page of sports section while having to get by with a fraction of that coverage on stuff that really hits home, to my house and the neighbor next door and the neighbor next to them and so on.

Serving up a sports-heavy product and shorting the hard news coverage because it serves the beancounters' agenda -- it requires bureau costs and expertise of veteran reporters and some actual enterprise work, vs. covering scheduled events of sports (even with costs of road games) -- is just an alternative way of insulting your readers. I'm one of us (SportsJournalists.com) and I feel that way. This rag is telling me to buy the WSJ and the NYT for the important stuff, and go to the Net for the candy stuff.

Bottom line: Not smart to give people what's easy or convenient or affordable to cover, rather than what people might want and need and actually pay money to read. I'm very suspicious that hyper-local and sports-heavy coverage is as much about the former as it is finding your "niche."

 

The idea is absurd.

If this is Tampa's idea and theirs alone, that's bad and Media General should have stepped in and thrown the kill switch. If MG was trying to use Tampa as a guinea pig, then it's again proof that MG holds Richmond to a different standard and something's seriously wrong with that thinking.

Not only is Tampa burying sports, but it's also trying to quickly throw the dirt on it to hide the ever-worsening smell.

 

Explain?

 

Why did Tampa try this single-section experiment alone and not Richmond? If this was Media General's idea, show some confidence and work the idea throughout the chain.

They continue to do such with the websites - getting progressively worse each time, at least in terms of story access - and with their "clustering" ideas, which grew, if they didn't start, with their North Carolina papers.

 

So you single out Richmond and not Winston-Salem?

Also, it's Tampa's fault that all the MG papers are under the gun. Tampa blew its budget BIG TIME and caused cuts for everyone else. So yes...Tampa should have to fix it.

 

100 percent right.

 

Yes. Every conversation I have with a higher up at my paper ends up a bitchfest about Tampa's absolute level of fail and suck.

 

Not surprising ... Tampa has been running through money worse than water for years.

And IJAG ... yes, I'm pointing at Richmond. I'm not calling out RTD and its staff, I'm calling out corporate. It has always claimed Richmond as its flagship, yet Tampa has (or had) more circulation. WSJ is obviously a big property by MG standards, but has always taken a backseat to Tampa and Richmond.

Media General should have said something to Tampa before the Trib sunk to this level. Given that it might have saved the publication from itself, who would have called MG execs excessive micromanagers? Maybe back when corporate first got involved, but certainly not in hindsight.

 

And exactly what in their actions the past two years makes you think MG management would have had it in their heads to stop what happened? The next good decision that group makes will be the first.

 

Sam, MG has always loved the Tampa market. They know that its growing, unlike many areas of the country. The problem is that the talent level at the Trib has never been thought of highly by some in the business.
I credit MG for trying new things. Obviously this is one idea that wasn't so good.