The hits keep coming at the S-T ...

Sorry if this is a d_b ...

http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/02/23/2872184/star-telegram-building-being-sold.html#

"The Star-Telegram property has been on the block for more than two years. It was put up for sale after the newspaper sold a four-story building, which initially housed a savings and loan, along with an adjacent parking lot and two other downtown lots, to the Fort Worth Club in September 2008.

In December 2008, the Star-Telegram, owned by The McClatchy Co., sold its facility on West Abram Street in Arlington. It has also sold some smaller distribution facilities throughout Tarrant County.

In the past couple of years, the newspaper has reduced its staff through attrition and layoffs and no longer needs as big of a building. Some employees have been moved from the downtown building to the newspaper's offices at its printing facility, while other employees work remotely using laptops and cellphones."

Laid off more than 20 just a couple of weeks ago ...

 

While there's something to be said for working from home or a coffee shop using laptops and cellphones, it's sort of disquieting to think that it's because you simply don't have an office anymore.

Once upon a time, newspapers seemed to consider it important to own the land where they had an office, so they weren't beholden to landlords if they ever had to write about them. Then again, newspapers also seemed to consider it important to have copy editors and reporters, and circulate beyond the city limits, so ...

 

Newsrooms are a suckhole for productivity and nothing ever gets done. You ever see Jeff Bagwell walk into a newsroom to do a story? The mayor? Didn't think so.

 

Well, Simon, that's only partially true. Reporters stuck in newsrooms can be an issue.

But ... back in the "old days" (referring to such things now seems inevitable in my life), newsrooms were cauldrons of discussion and great story ideas and interaction with your fellow employees and, yes, camaraderie. Everybody knew each other, and everybody shot the shit with each other, and all sorts of good things were generated in that environment.

No going back, of course, but the "suckhole" idea isn't nearly as cut-and-dried as you think. At their best, newsrooms were the opposite. Energetic, exciting places that were stopovers for reporters who had no other way to file their stories when they got off the street.

 

I'll second the motion, SF_Express. One big reason I got into the business back in the "old days" was the allure of the newsroom atmosphere, with crusty veterans smoking, swearing, occasionally drinking scotch from a bottle hidden in a drawer, talking about what's news, working the phones, sweating ledes, trading ideas and occasional barbs, throwing Nerf balls and wadded up pieces of teletype paper, wielding pica poles as weaponry, and being simultaneously cynical and the brightest people in the city.

Now ... well, most newsrooms look like insurance offices with just an occasional outbreak of "The Front Page." But not nearly enough anymore.