The trickle down effect

[Rusty Shackleford]

Moddy's thread on all the upcoming moves got me to thinking: These moves all seem to involve people at the highest levels of print sports journalism moving to the highest levels of online sports journalism. But for people like me, who work at small-time, small-town papers, does this sort of thing matter in the least? My paper, in some form or another, will always exist, because we're the only news organization that covers this area, which includes a bunch of high schools and one small college.

People have joked that these moves are a 'rats from a sinking ship' kind of thing, with people moving from the sinking ship (newpapers) into the nice luxury cruise liner next door (internet sports sites). But from what I can tell, this will have absolutely zero effect on me. Is that wrong, or am I missing something? Will this somehow trickle down to effect me in some unforseen way?

 

[Norman Stansfield]

Moddy's thread on all the upcoming moves got me to thinking: These moves all seem to involve people at the highest levels of print sports journalism moving to the highest levels of online sports journalism. But for people like me, who work at small-time, small-town papers, does this sort of thing matter in the least?

In a word, no.

 

[Write-brained]

I'd say it could have a positive impact on any young, talented writer. Newspapers are shedding some a lot of their older (more expensive) writers for younger talent. With the cream of the crop now going online, there will be more opportunities for the younger guys to take high profile beats at a cheaper cost - as long as those beats haven't been cut, that is.

 

[The Last Boy Scout]

Hm, thought this was a thread about pissing myself.

Anyway, most days, I don't have the first idea what to expect. I'm in a place small enough that people still read the paper. Our Web site does decent hits, but not enough to pay the bills. But it's a nice supplement so they push for more content from fewer man hours. In a nutshell, my employers don't know what they want either.

 

[dawgpounddiehard]

Hyper-local newspapers or community weeklies are doing fine because there is a desire from the community to have their school board, their zoning and planning commission, their city council covered and covered in-depth.

Of course, the biggest star of these papers is the sports department.

In that regard, I think small-town papers or community weeklies are going to be just fine. Where the problem lies is the big metro. By the time you open the sports page in the morning, you know the scores, how the game went, etc. It's old news.

It's not old news in the hyper-local scene.

 

[FileNotFound]

It would seem that these moves involving well-placed editors would create opportunities for those wanting to get into management. As for the effect on smaller shops, no, not unless you're a candidate to be an ASE at a metro.

 

[Ace]

The thing I would worry about at a community paper/weekly is that you need to do a good job and have a solid online presence.

Right now, if someone decides to take on the local paper, it would be an expensive battle to buy the presses, secure the advertising, afford the paper and delivery, etc.

As the industry shifts to the web, though, one talented, hard-working person could kick the ass of a small staff with local online news coverage at not much out-of-pocket cost.

 

[21]

If this board had been around 20 years ago, we would have had this same discussion about all the employment drama created by The National.

People who were in the right place at the right time (ie, at big papers who were losing big names) got once-in-a-lifetime job opportunities, filling the top spots vacated by top people.

I don't think the ripple seriously affected anyone beyond those lucky folks who slid into those jobs.