Baltimore Sun gets reinvented

[JayFarrar]

http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=13391

I know Lee Abrams gets bashed a lot, but can Baltimore Sunners comment on what he is talking about?

I'd also like to see what the Sun is doing. If you are in that area, drop me a PM

 

[Joe Williams]

Sun gets reinvented, and many of the folks who help with the effort soon will get rewarded with job loss. They are being forced to train their replacements, although in this case their replacements will be no one. Make the paper as exciting as they want to, but Randy Michaels still won't rest until he eliminates people. Lots of people.

I think Hollywood has made a few movies about this: Beleaguered souls trying desperately to please the tyrants who control their fate, if only to buy a little more time before they're eliminated. Think these movies generally have been set in WWII concentration camps.

 

[steveu]

That paper just had a decent redesign a while back, compared to what this paper used to be like.

I'll believe the latest look is really good, Lee, when I see it for myself.

Fewer pages... you better not have a g*&damn 28-page paper in a city of 700,000.

 

[JayFarrar]

Dude, are you serious?
You just compared newsroom employees to Holocaust survivors.
Lord, get some perspective.

All I was wanting to know was what people on the ground thought, not some navel gazing exercise in evils of ownership.

 

[Sly]

Dude, are you serious?
You just compared newsroom employees to Holocaust survivors.
Lord, get some perspective.

All I was wanting to know was what people on the ground thought, not some navel gazing exercise in evils of ownership.

Uh, I don't think he was talking about the survivors.

 

[dixiehack]

*Figuring out the trademarks...what content REALLY matters and doing a spectacular visual and editorial job with it. Focusing on their HITS, and doing an amazing job. In fact, the paper will be smaller and more compact, BUT far more focused and engaging which at the end of the day will be more satisfying.

Let's recap the bidding here. One of the chief culprits in the decline and fall of FM radio (through the use of ever-tightening, bleached out playlists) is now applying the same formula to print. Because God knows the marketplace has been screaming for Clear Channel: The Newspaper.

 

[leo1]

too bad the most important guy in the newspaper chain can't write in complete sentences.

 

[ned racine]

If my radio friends are correct,Michaels was actually against voice tracking and was actually a guy who cared about programming...Thats part of the reason he does not work for Clear Channel.He was one of the few radio execs who was more into qualtiy rather than the bottom line.....he may have changed his thinking

 

[dixiehack]

If my radio friends are correct,Michaels was actually against voice tracking and was actually a guy who cared about programming...Thats part of the reason he does not work for Clear Channel.He was one of the few radio execs who was more into qualtiy rather than the bottom line.....he may have changed his thinking

He came out against it later in his career (and indeed tried to reverse the damage with XM). But he helped pioneer the classic rock format, and got the ball rolling towards boiling down the playlist to the bone. Once he decided it had gone too far, it was way too late.

The frustrating thing isn't that the guy is a dunce (he isn't.) The maddening thing is that he has about one good idea in 15, and nobody to call BS on the losers.

 

[Joe Williams]

Dude, are you serious?
You just compared newsroom employees to Holocaust survivors.
Lord, get some perspective.

All I was wanting to know was what people on the ground thought, not some navel gazing exercise in evils of ownership.

Dude, you should have spelled out your rules at the top then. Or maybe I'm the first in the history of SportsJournalists.com to stray from the thread maker's intent. Uh, sorry.

 

[Ace]

too bad the most important guy in the newspaper chain can't write in complete sentences.

Be fair. He probably pays someone $250,000 a year to write that stuff for him.

 

[cortez]

The sports page now comes in tabloid form except for Sunday.
Yes, the sections are smaller. Much smaller. Like, only listing the top 10 leaders at each professional golf tourney (majors don't count). To me, that is unacceptable.
One of the best things about the paper used to be the weekend TV listings on Friday morning. It had the whole weekend. Now, it's one day at a time. Not enough space.
These are just two examples. I tried to get through the entire link, but that guy was weirding me out.
_ a subscriber

 

[SixToe]

Listing the top 10 guys at a golf tournament seems fine with me.

Why do you need eight inches of scores or a list of losers who are 18-over par?

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

Listing the top 10 guys at a golf tournament seems fine with me.

Why do you need eight inches of scores or a list of losers who are 18-over par?

Unless they are used to it, readers ***** when you cut the golf scores. They have their faves and the roundup can't cover them all. Same with NASCAR.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

If given a choice between words and agate, sports fans pick agate every time, and I'm not sure I blame them.

 

[BTExpress]

All that is true, but golf agate is one of the biggest space cancers in any newspaper.

Three tournaments (PGA, LPGA, Champions) will cost you 35-40 inches in the Saturday paper and 20 inches in the Sunday-Monday papers.

As opposed to tennis, which gets smaller by 50% each day, golf agate has only two lengths --- long, and half as long.

And you gotta run the guy at +18, because "How'd John Daly do?"

I used to be one of those "agate is king" guys. But in this age, with the information available in lots of places, I would not mind a paper that had words instead. I know where to find out Daly's score. Give me a good read instead.