Layoffs in Indianapolis

[RecoveringJournalist]

Ack, you're right. Definitely Cavin. And it's pretty amazing that he has held on in the midst of all the other departures.

I've long wondered when the day will come that the Star decides covering the 500 is good enough.

Do we really need to cover Indiana basketball? Do the readers really care about basketball here? We don't have to travel with the Pacers until Paul George is healthy. If the combine wasn't here, I'm not sure we'd send anyone. Maybe we can hire stringers.

I think you mistook my comment as a suggestion that it was a good idea. And for Cavin's sake I hope it never happens, at least not until long after he's retired.

But given the Star's decisions about coverage on a lot of fronts, it wouldn't surprise me. In part because IndyCar and Hoosiers or Pacers basketball are far different animals. Yes the sport has the history and tradition there, but I'm not sure the dedicated fan interest is. All I know is that out of my cohort of 30-something-year-old small town Indiana friends, I'm the only one who pays attention to any of the races that aren't on Memorial Day weekend. Most of our Dads are still tuning in, but there's a huge drop-off with younger audiences. Part of the same problem Nascar is experiencing, in that young people aren't into cars.

Oh, I got the joke. Of course that doesn't mean there isn't an element of truth there.

 

[Bob Cook]

The Denver game was Chappell's last for the Star, but he's not done covering the Colts. The local ABC affiliate has hired him, a la the local NBC affiliate hiring Kravitz.

http://www.theindychannel.com/sports/colts/award-winning-sportswriter-mike-chappell-joins-rtv6

Interesting that while the newspaper is willing to say goodbye to big names (at least locally), the TV stations for the moment are stepping up in hiring them. The ABC affiliate also recently hired Michael Grady, a local sports radio talker who also is the PA announcer at Pacers games. Is TV doing that where you live?

 

[User 4332]

The Denver game was Chappell's last for the Star, but he's not done covering the Colts. The local ABC affiliate has hired him, a la the local NBC affiliate hiring Kravitz.

http://www.theindychannel.com/sports/colts/award-winning-sportswriter-mike-chappell-joins-rtv6

Interesting that while the newspaper is willing to say goodbye to big names (at least locally), the TV stations for the moment are stepping up in hiring them. The ABC affiliate also recently hired Michael Grady, a local sports radio talker who also is the PA announcer at Pacers games. Is TV doing that where you live?

One of the local stations where I live has been doing it on the news side for a while - hiring some of the best political and investigative word people out of the newspapers. That station's website has become my go to local news source over papers that now have soft pay walls. It has a robust local sports website and owns the major sports talk station, so those folks are all integrated into its programming, but so far it has not snagged any of the must-read writers from the papers.

 

[Bob Cook]

I haven't seen that too much yet in Chicago, although TV news -- supposedly also not the money-maker it used to be -- keeps expanding. WGN, which until a few years ago only had news in the morning and at 9 p.m., is expanding its 5-6 newscast to 4-6. I wonder if it's cheaper to expand your newscast than to buy and promote another hour of syndicated programming that may flop in a year's time.

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

I'm glad Chappell found a job quickly, but those jobs for the local TV station can be shaky.

 

[PioneerVoice]

I'm glad Chappell found a job quickly, but those jobs for the local TV station can be shaky.

Relevant to this: http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/267509/seeking-to-bolster-websites-tv-stations-hire-away-newspaper-journalists/

It's worked well for the likes of Eric Crawford in Louisville.

 

[Bob Cook]

I'm glad Chappell found a job quickly, but those jobs for the local TV station can be shaky.

Relevant to this: http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/267509/seeking-to-bolster-websites-tv-stations-hire-away-newspaper-journalists/

It's worked well for the likes of Eric Crawford in Louisville.

Thanks for sharing.

And, sure, TV jobs can be dicey. But at this moment, certainly in a Gannett city (or is that Gannet?), they're more stable than newspapers.

(Well, except for anyone working at WISH-TV in Indianapolis, which lost its CBS affiliation recently.)

 

[BurnsWhenIPee]

Per Kravitz's twitter, he has been downsized out of his gig with the TV station.

 

[crimsonace]

Per Kravitz's twitter, he has been downsized out of his gig with the TV station.

Word is, several others from the station have been laid off, too. Kravitz was by far the most visible

The issue with TV news is that it is a consultant-driven business with a lot of herd-following. The fad four years ago was hiring good journalists away from newspapers to bolster web traffic by providing high-quality print content and compete head-to-head with the newspapers. Now, it's not generating the revenue (or another fad has replaced it). Could also be, with the consultants moving onto the next shiny object, TV stations are viewing their websites like newspapers did in the early days - as an annoying add-on that's not the prime product and thus aren't really worth putting much time and effort into. The quality of writing on TV station sites - other than what the newspaper alumni like Kravitz provide - is often very ghastly. Much of it would be sent back for rewrite in the high school freshman journalism class I teach.

That said, I feel for Bob. Many of us have been there - I bailed out on the biz before it happened to me - but he's a good guy whom I've enjoyed getting to know in recent years. He did a ton for WTHR, including his usual columnist gig and on-air appearances. WTHR also aired the local minor league hockey team's games on a digital subchannel for a year and he did color commentary for them when his schedule allowed. He broke the "deflategate" story while working for the TV station, which likely generated a ton of traffic and *never* would've happened without a newspaper journalist working for them.

 

[Slacker]

How fast will Kravitz get picked up by The Athletic?

 

[LanceyHoward]

How fast will Kravitz get picked up by The Athletic?

Does the Athletic have an Indianapolis edition?

 

[Tweener]

That might be irrelevant when considering Kravitz and the massive following and name recognition he has.

 

[DanOregon]

The latest "trend" for local and other news outlets is just doing a video cut and not using words to tell a story.

 

[playthrough]

Word is, several others from the station have been laid off, too. Kravitz was by far the most visible

The issue with TV news is that it is a consultant-driven business with a lot of herd-following. The fad four years ago was hiring good journalists away from newspapers to bolster web traffic by providing high-quality print content and compete head-to-head with the newspapers. Now, it's not generating the revenue (or another fad has replaced it). Could also be, with the consultants moving onto the next shiny object, TV stations are viewing their websites like newspapers did in the early days - as an annoying add-on that's not the prime product and thus aren't really worth putting much time and effort into. The quality of writing on TV station sites - other than what the newspaper alumni like Kravitz provide - is often very ghastly. Much of it would be sent back for rewrite in the high school freshman journalism class I teach.

That said, I feel for Bob. Many of us have been there - I bailed out on the biz before it happened to me - but he's a good guy whom I've enjoyed getting to know in recent years. He did a ton for WTHR, including his usual columnist gig and on-air appearances. WTHR also aired the local minor league hockey team's games on a digital subchannel for a year and he did color commentary for them when his schedule allowed. He broke the "deflategate" story while working for the TV station, which likely generated a ton of traffic and *never* would've happened without a newspaper journalist working for them.

I never understood why WTHR spent all the money to hire Kravitz and then didn't hire (or already have) anyone to edit his stuff. Like every writer, he needed an editor. And a better platform behind him -- for a few years, his columns would say "By Anonymous" at the top. He was a shiny object in a crappy box.

Indy has an edition of The Athletic and, as a subscriber, I'd love it if he was picked up there but it doesn't seem like many of the markets have been hiring columnists.

 

[PCLoadLetter]

I never understood why WTHR spent all the money to hire Kravitz and then didn't hire (or already have) anyone to edit his stuff. Like every writer, he needed an editor. And a better platform behind him -- for a few years, his columns would say "By Anonymous" at the top. He was a shiny object in a crappy box.

Indy has an edition of The Athletic and, as a subscriber, I'd love it if he was picked up there but it doesn't seem like many of the markets have been hiring columnists.

From a TV perspective I don't get the hire at all. That transition rarely works -- the newspaper reporter is generally bad on TV and his/her presence on the web isn't going to move the needle. I get that Kravitz is a big deal in Indy but it made no sense after the initial splash of the hire.

Back when Gannett bought the Arizona Republic and already owned KPNX-TV they made a big deal about how they were going integrate reporters on both sides. It was a huge failure. One of the newspaper guys was really good and eventually became an anchor. All of the others were off the air within weeks.

 

[playthrough]

From a TV perspective I don't get the hire at all. That transition rarely works -- the newspaper reporter is generally bad on TV and his/her presence on the web isn't going to move the needle. I get that Kravitz is a big deal in Indy but it made no sense after the initial splash of the hire.

Back when Gannett bought the Arizona Republic and already owned KPNX-TV they made a big deal about how they were going integrate reporters on both sides. It was a huge failure. One of the newspaper guys was really good and eventually became an anchor. All of the others were off the air within weeks.

Kravitz would be the first to tell you he has a face for radio. It was heck of an opportunity to get out from a Gannett shop before it got rid of him; until four years later when it was the TV station doing the cutting.

It's been a good few years for readers here between his columns and Gregg Doyel at the Star. Two very different styles.

 

[PCLoadLetter]

Kravitz would be the first to tell you he has a face for radio. It was heck of an opportunity to get out from a Gannett shop before it got rid of him; until four years later when it was the TV station doing the cutting.

It's been a good few years for readers here between his columns and Gregg Doyel at the Star. Two very different styles.

I would love to know how many hits Kravitz was getting on the station website. I would bet it was really low, and that's no shade toward Kravitz. It's just the wrong forum.

 

[Mwilliams685]

Kravitz would be the first to tell you he has a face for radio. It was heck of an opportunity to get out from a Gannett shop before it got rid of him; until four years later when it was the TV station doing the cutting.

It's been a good few years for readers here between his columns and Gregg Doyel at the Star. Two very different styles.

I really miss his radio show with Eddie White.

 

[BurnsWhenIPee]

I would love to know how many hits Kravitz was getting on the station website. I would bet it was really low, and that's no shade toward Kravitz. It's just the wrong forum.

It always seemed to me the addition of Kravitz for the TV station in Indy, and the Louisville station that hired the Courier-Journal writers, was more about hurting the papers there than helping the stations.