Combining sports departments

[SCEditor]

I don't know if this was driven by McClatchy like the Charlotte-Raleigh deal, but Hilton Head and Beaufort's papers have combined their sports department and their sports section.

http://www.islandpacket.com/sports/local/story/544512.html

They recently laid off a sports designer in Beaufort, but it looks like the rest of the staff will remain intact. The new SE in Beaufort, who hasn't been there very long I think, is bumped down to ASE.

 

[KYSportsWriter]

I'd hate to be the odd man out in that deal...

 

[thegrifter]

Wasn't it Beaufort that layed off a designer who just started there months earlier?

 

[Editude]

It's been discussed before, but the San Bernardino and Ontario/Pomona papers combined their sports sections, and the results have not been uniformly successful.

 

[SCEditor]

Wasn't it Beaufort that layed off a designer who just started there months earlier?

Yes. They hired a guy and a few months later let him go.

 

[slappy4428]

Wasn't it Beaufort that layed off a designer who just started there months earlier?

Outing alert: The Grifter is Jessica DaSilva

 

[Moderator1]

I like it that "layed off" has just up and become part of the SJ lingo.

I used it in a Facebook message today and have no clue if the person I sent it to (a journalist) is here or not. They may be sitting there thinking "what an idiot."

 

[MU_was_not_so_hard]

Buddy of mine described the new digs, and it sounds like it's actually a really good idea. The rest of the sections will follow suit, and eventually, it sounds like they will be one paper.
Sports, with Jeff Kidd having worked at both papers, seems like a natural place to start.

 

[bob]

The Patriot Ledger (Quincy, MA) and Brockton Enterprise have a common sports editor and share a lot of content. There doesn't seem to be much of a mission plan. Quincy often uses Brockton stories, but Brockton rarely uses Quincy because their union made a deal that says they have to staff local pro events. Quincy doesn't have that deal, and they sometimes don't staff games. When the Celtics made their playoff run, their Red Sox seat at Fenway was usually empty because they have one guy covering both teams. Quincy also frequently uses content from the Metrowest Daily News in Framingham, another Gatehouse paper.

 

[SCEditor]

Buddy of mine described the new digs, and it sounds like it's actually a really good idea. The rest of the sections will follow suit, and eventually, it sounds like they will be one paper.
Sports, with Jeff Kidd having worked at both papers, seems like a natural place to start.

I don't know if it's a good idea; I'm still mixed on it. But they couldn't have gotten anybody better than Jeff Kidd to run it. It actually sounds like it might be costlier, especially with high gas prices. They've got one guy who is covering four private schools that are scattered all over the place. Before, they had somebody in Hilton Head that covered the HH schools and traded with Beaufort if they met up. I do know it will continue to be a strong product as long as Kidd is running it.

 

[fossywriter8]

OK, I work for much two smaller papers than what seems to be the majority of posters here (metros), so I may have a different take on this.

Let me get this straight. Two sister papers -- daily papers, I take it -- merge their sports departments and increase their high school coverage to ... 11 teams?!

My part-time gig is at a small daily in northwest Ohio and my full-time job is at a twice-a-week paper in a nearby town (I'll explain another time in another post, but it does work). The daily paper covers 14 high schools (11 with football) along with a Division II college and a Division III college, all spread out over five counties. One of the stringers also covers Ohio State football (home and away), while we have a few columnists for outdoors, bowling and local racing. The twice-a-week paper covers eight high schools (six of which are the same as the daily paper, and six of which have football), spread out over three counties.
The daily paper has three full-timers, two part-timers and a pair of stringers. The twice-a-week paper has me and a stringer (forgive the grammar).

I realize the two papers which just merged probably also cover some pro and D-I college teams, so there's obviously work there. But if the daily paper I work at only published local rec sports and briefs a couple times a week and cut way back on the non-revenue high school sports (I'm not familiar with the area in question, but that pretty much sounds like everything but football and boys basketball) our readers would be righteously pissed off.
And who cares if they put national box scores, NBA Finals and World Series stuff online? Fans can get that anywhere on the Web. Unless you're staffing the event, leave that stuff off the Internet and use the Web to broaden your own coverage.

 

[SCEditor]

Fossy: The Island-Packet has always had what most would consider a bloated staff. The paper previously covered four high schools (and other events, obviously) and had a five-person staff. They now also have small school, USC Beaufort. My shop, similiar size and in a different part of the state, covers nine schools, two Division II schools and other events. We've had a three-person staff (four if you count our oldtimer who covers golf and outdoors).

The one thing these two papers have as an advantage is that there is A LOT of money down in Hilton Head. I imagine they're doing better than most McClatchy properties.

It is a curious move. Both sports section seemed to be running fine on their own, but like somebody mentioned, this could be the first step in combining both publications. And if they do that, they'll probably cut some jobs or not fill them through attrition. But that's speculation on my part.

 

[MU_was_not_so_hard]

And SC, you're right -- they have already started cutting a couple jobs here and there. But if the combined product is better, there's a good chance they won't have too much of an effect.
Places like Hilton Head, Beaufort, Charleston and Myrtle Beach are not getting ultimately obliterated right now. The economies aren't getting demolished (as bad as other parts of the country) and they're still doing ok w/ advertising.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

I've been through this a few times. It can be a good thing temporarily, but eventually the readers of one of the papers get screwed.

 

[SCEditor]

MU, I don't know if the combined product will be better, but I doubt there will be a dropoff. They've still got a good-sized staff (eight people at two papers with a combined circulation of less than 30K). But instead of the two sports sections having their own identity, they'll be a lot of days where the section front is dominant toward one paper's coverage area. If I'm getting the Beaufort Gazette, why do I want to read a centerpiece on a Hilton Head Christian kid, when before I got a centerpiece on a kid from Beaufort High? I've got no problem with them doing this if the paper is combining, but why am I getting a Beaufort Gazette with Hilton Head stuff in it? But maybe that's just me.

 

[buckweaver]

Having been through a merger like this -- two, actually -- I'll warn y'all that it's not as easy as it looks on paper.

On a human level, you're asking the entire staff of one paper to familiarize themselves with a totally new coverage area (assuming a majority of their markets do not overlap), and that takes time. Mistakes will be made on deadline, for that simple reason. I don't care how well you know the area or how close the two papers are, if you're not involved in putting out a section every night for another paper's readers, the depth of your familiarity with that area will be lacking. There will be a learning curve, and for some people it will be a steep one.

I wish them the best of luck -- but it will take time for them to get into a rhythm again, and I hope management gives them time to work those things out.

EDIT: And as Frank and SC just posted, one paper's readers are going to get screwed. It's inevitable.

 

[SixToe]

I believe this will become more common among papers owned by the same company and in close proximity, with regard to "sharing" staffs or combining to cover events and save money.

How do you work that out, though? Get the staffs together for a sit-down? Looks like that would be important to work out before starting the process.

 

[SCEditor]

I believe this will become more common among papers owned by the same company and in close proximity, with regard to "sharing" staffs or combining to cover events and save money.

How do you work that out, though? Get the staffs together for a sit-down? Looks like that would be important to work out before starting the process.

I got no problem with combining staff. I've got no problem with working together to cover big events. I just don't understand why you would have the same sports front (with the exception of football and basketball) every day. If I'm getting the Beaufort Gazette, I don't want the CP to be about a local Hilton Head team and my local team is below the fold on the bottom of the page. If I'm getting the Beaufort Gazette, I want my local team to be the CP.

 

[buckweaver]

If they're smart, SC -- and more importantly, if they're organized -- they'll have swapping local CPs on those days. That's what we always tried to do, and it was mostly successful. It takes work, but swapping zoners is pretty common.

But what'll happen, most likely, is that Beaufort's inside local pages might have a Hilton Head story, where before there might have been a wire story or something.

It's going to take a lot of organization and coordination to make it work. It's also going to take open attitudes from the people on the ground, which may or may not be a problem. Writers will be writing for both papers, so even if their beats are Beaufort-based they would do well to keep an eye out for something that would be good in the Hilton Head paper. That's not something they ever had to worry about before. Now, they will.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

Writers will be writing for both papers, so even if their beats are Beaufort-based they would do well to keep an eye out for something that would be good in the Hilton Head paper. That's not something they ever had to worry about before. Now, they will.

And they might do a damned good job of trying to be fair to readers in both areas (although often it doesn't work that way). But there's no escaping the fact that while once readers of each paper had a product specifically to them, now they get something aimed right down the middle when teams from the two areas play each other. Unless you have the writer do two distinct gamers, but that isn't going to last very long.