Comments on: Kill staff illustrations? Eliminate features sections? Egads, it’s getting worse…

By: coffeymaker

coffeymaker — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:22:56 +0000

Denise,

Let’s send reporters to the local games and beef up the reporting but let’s not forget that the away games are just as important to cover as well. That’s where wire comes in. Having the wire can save a lot of money especially if you don’t have the staff or the funds to cover an event.

Let’s not forget about breaking news events especially the Super Bowl, the World Series or even NASCAR? What about the photos that move across the wire? If you drop these stories from the newspaper, then you will see your readership go down the hill.

Wire can be redundant but that’s why you have talented editors to weed through the clutter and choose the best stories for the next edition. The wire is probably the best and most reliable service any newspaper can subscribe to.

By: Denise Covert

Denise Covert — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:11:34 +0000

To Coffeymaker:
If you can reduce the wire pages, why not just cut them out altogether? You pay for the service itself, no matter how little you use it. I personally don’t want to pay a million dollars a year (not an exaggeration) for two pages of briefs and some scores I can get for free on the Internet.
Diehard sports fans know their team’s score before the paper hits the driveway. What sports fans in your town REALLY want is more coverage of their local sports. And with the wire money freed up, you can hire lots of sports reporters to get that job done.
In fact, sports should have the msot reporters of any department. Why? Because you have to sit through a whole game to write about it, and you can’t go to more than one game at a time. Beef up the sports staff to give the readers what they can’t get anywhere else, and dump that useless, redundant wire.

By: Fred Matamoros

Fred Matamoros — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:48:47 +0000

I don’t know what to think of all this. Outsourcing all illustrations AND informational graphics? I’m screwed. I also have been freelancing for years now. I don’t pursue it aggressively, but it’s been the equivalent of a part-time income at best.

Where is the individuality is everyone is running Brad Holland, Anita Kunz or John Telford illustrations (magnificent as they may be, like how I threw you in there John?)? I don’t get it. But, adapt we must if that’s the way the economy is steering things.

Thanks for the heads up?

By: Charles Apple

Charles Apple — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:20:21 +0000

Oh, that doesn’t surprise me, Chris. In this economy, with revenues drying up and newspapers hacking away at their two most valuable assets — talent and content — leave it to Linda Grist Cunningham to actually find a way to expand and improve her paper.
.
Why isn’t this woman running her own chain?