WaPo. BaltSun to share content

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/23/AR2008122301161.html?hpid=topnews

This I gotta see.

 

In other words, The Post won't travel with the O's and/or Ravens on the road anymore.

 

The Post has been leaning this way for a while ... The O's were at least a home team for a while, before the Nationals came. But the Post has generally stopped traveling once the O's were out of contention (usually around April 20 ). The Ravens never were a home team. This actually makes a lot of sense. Maryland is the only real crossover between the two papers.

 

WaPo is a much superior paper to the Sun, but I can't see any way this would harm either paper. And I'm sure there would be an exception made if O's or Ravens were in contention (columnist doing a story, etc.)

This will let WaPo cover its bread and butter teams better, ideally.

 

It's an odd thing, but the Ravens fanbase is spread out farther than the O's fan base. I'm guessing alot has to do with the fact that the O's suck and ownership is despised. The Post's readership extends to Ravens fans in the outer countries, just passed the true Washington Metro area and also to the Eastern shore. Outside of PG and Montgomery Counties, Maryland is pretty much Ravens territory. The Sun does a great job of covering the Ravens.

The Sun also does a better job of covering the Maryland Governor and State legislature, which is a backhanded compliment since neither paper does a thorough job. 95% of The Suns national and international stories are Tribune based wire reports with an occassional Times News Service thrown in.

 

You're fricken kidding, right? Why would Sam Zell and his people continue to pay 225 newsroom salaries, plus their health insurance, plus their 401k matching plans when they can just get a bunch of content -- normally produced by those people -- from the Washington Post?

The Sun staff will be slashed in half, again, in less than a year. This is like a death notice for the Sun.

Best of luck to the Post though.

 

Bam!...Pow!...

Uggh.

Sadly, and unfortunately, I think H.L. Mencken may be right.

As Frank Ridgeway wrote yesterday on another thread, there is way too much sharing going on these days for it to be for the industry's own good anymore.

 

Then sell the papers. Hell, Zell himself might be in deep shit here shortly with the internal review of Blago and everything going on.

Someone needs to step up, offer Zell some money and buy the Sun then. And another thing: What if the Post is the one using Baltimore Sun writers from O's and Ravens games, instead of the other way around?

 

If you're think about this strictly in terms of sports, you're a moron.

The Post gets Orioles and Ravens stuff or run on Page 12. Yippie! The jobs of the Ravens and Orioles beat writer are secure!

Meanwhile, both papers contemplate whehter they both need news bureaus in Howard and Anne Arundel counties. Which one do you think gets out the scalpel quicker, the company drowing in $8 billion (soon to be $9 billion) of debt? Or the other one?

Poof! 15 more Sun journalists just lost their jobs.

But hey, thank goodness Baltimore readers can open their paper and get Nats and Wizards coverage.

 

Dismissing the sports coverage is just as moronic. Sports sells papers, in case nobody ever dropped that gem on your lap before.

 

So wait, people in Baltimore will be buying the Sun to read about the Redskins and Nats? Do you honestly believe that?

 

It will add to the comprehensiveness of the section. That's the selling point.