Not sure if his MAC coverage will be replaced.

Signing off with Kenny Loggins ... Plain Dealer career has come to a bittersweet end. Loved every minute of it, save for a few leatherheads. Thank you all!!!https://t.co/pZfPWix8IB

— elton alexander (@eaPeeDee) April 1, 2019

I believe Elton might have been one of those who voluntarily left. He has enough years to retire. Several old-school folks stepped forward to save the jobs of younger ones. Too bad Pluto didn't do the same - his bloated salary could have paid for three reporters.

I would refine RJ's comment further. AP is gutting UNIONIZED newsroom staff. Most of the reporting now is being done by the non union staff at Cleveland.com.

Without risking sending this thread to Siberia, I'll just quote the article to show that we can both be correct. Overall numbers of professional working journalists continue to decline dramatically.

"A Pew Research Center analysis of Bureau of Labor statistics from 2008 to 2017 found overall newsroom employment dropped nationally by 23 percent and in newspaper newsrooms employment dropped by 45 percent. More than 2,400 media jobs have been eliminated so far this year, according to Business Insider."

I used to lament this, but once it became clear even THE INTERNET wouldn't support discussion, analysis and reporting on the MAC, what with its writers who work for free, I realized there's just no appetite for it at all. You're going to be left with student publications and program PR releases. And I can't blame any media outlet for ignoring it.

Ohio puts up videos about the programs on YouTube and gets a few hundred views.

Our best hope is going to be some bored former reporter deciding to do it as a hobby, like Dave Kindred decided to start covering a high school girls basketball team.

Yes, if it was good, well-written content and well-done videos. etc.

Yes

#ShouldBeAPoll

I would too but I don't think nearly enough people would.

Seems the whole newspaper industry is dying,especially print editions.

Our "local" paper, "The Record" was bought by Gannett 2016.

Since then hey got got rid of most of their staff,including news and sports reporters,food,movie and theater critics.

The paper is more or less a pamphlet,with reprinted USA Today or AP Articles.

Problem is,they are the only game in town when it comes any local news and obits.

Oh,while the paper has shrunk,since it was purchased,the daily news stand price went from around $1.25 to,as of March,$2.50.

I used to pick up a paper on the way to work.
As of March,not anymore.

Sadly it has been one thing after another for the print industry. For MAC sports fans in general and Bobcat fans in particular, I sense this could spell doom for our print coverage. The cutbacks in staff will mean papers will concentrate on high profile sports teams. It is not limited to sports as has been said, local news coverage gets cut so when a major issue, such as local elections, budget cuts, building project etc hits the TV news people often wonder how that happened.

Even the internet news world is changing. Think about it, how many of us that follow news, sports etc look at Twitter feeds instead of websites or blogs like we might have ten years ago. Time and the change it brings is a mind boggling proposition, while it makes life interesting it certainly gives us change for which we are all too often unprepared.

Print journalism jobs may be in decline but the many other disciplines in the school of journalism are not necessarily in decline. PR, marketing and advertising are all alive and doing well.

To pay the salaries of multiple beat writers and give them benefits and travel budgets on a MAC-only website, you'd need to pay waaaaay more than $4.99 a month given the small pool of MAC fans. And the thing would last about as long as the AAF.

The Athletic is still a wait-and-see proposition covering the major teams, let alone mid-major athletics. (Who is going to read about the MAC from April to August? No one.) And no one knows if this model, which is being held up with VC money while it tries to develop its wings, is no sure bet. Like The National or Grantland, things that value quality over mass consumption rarely actually work out.

The dream is to do what Christopher Kimball did with Cook's Country/Kitchen...a standalone quality publication/website not beholden to any sponsorships or pandering. It's so damn hard to pull off, though.

I think student publications, pontificators who work for free and watch the games from their couches and SIDs that are kept afloat with student fees and the insanity that is college athletics funding will be the only games in town.


....


Most of our Scripps grads do great.

There was a time period there in the early 2000s when I was there that the industry was changing so quickly that the curriculum fell behind in trying to prepare us for the current landscape, but that's nobody's fault. The internet changed things so quickly there was no possible way to be ready for it.

I just never had any desire to work in any other wing of the profession than print. I started writing for a newspaper at age 13 and don't ever care to write online, do PR or corporate communications. My skillset and (lack of) people skills just don't translate well there (imagine that.) Plus, I kinda sucked at this whole thing beyond writing a good game story.

I'm happy to make double the salary with incredible benefits working on an assembly line now, doing sports writing and photography as a hobby on the side. And not deal with the insatiable vultures that count as the average news consumer these days. Jim Harrison wrote it better I suppose:“The world that used to nurse us now keeps shouting inane instructions. That's why I ran to the woods.”

Most Scripps grads have do really well in this new landscape, though.

I can't wait to one day tell my infant son I worked at a newspaper. It's going to sound like I'm telling him I was a bowling alley pinsetter.