McClatchy newspaper chain has announced another round of layoffs, 1150 jobs across the country; this coming after an announcement in June of this year that McClatchy would axe 1400 jobs nationwide. Rumors are swirling in the local newspaper industry that McClatchy will soon close its Modesto production, as a cost saving measure, printing all it’s north valley papers out of Sacramento. Earlier this year McClatchy closed the doors on it Clovis Independent office, and its south valley coverage is also feeling the effects of McClatchy’s belt tightening. McClatchy’s papers in Raleigh and Charlotte, North Carolina have seen particularly drastic measures. McClatchy has decided to combine the sports and political reporting staffs between the two McClatchy owned papers. This of course is problematic for several reasons, but there is room for hope.

Problems first, and this is a problem intrinsic with newspaper chain ownership. You and I may not know a bit of difference between Raleigh and Charlotte, but I venture a guess that the people of these two fine cities would beg to differ that there weren’t a difference. As chains become more prevalent localism and diversity suffer. The McClatchy ownership/management in Sacramento, like you and I, likely don’t see a bit of difference between Raleigh and Charlotte, never mind that the two share the same geographic proximity as Fresno and San Francisco (imagine the SF Chronicle and the Fresno Bee (ownership aside) began sharing a sports and politics department). Something tells me that the people of Charlotte are about to get more Tar Heel & Blue Devil news than they will know what to do with. And, I certainly hope that the people of Charlotte and Raleigh have another source of local political news.

Now for the hope; I wont sound any grandiose hopes for a new form of localized news media raising from the ashes of the corporate giant that is McClatchy, but I will say that with a slight modification McClatchy could service its readers much better. Rather then combining the two reporting staffs, allow the sports staff to take over the political writing. I write this in all seriousness. Sports reporters are perhaps the only journalists who are allowed to analyze that which they are reporting on. You will find more analysis on any single day in the sports pages than in a whole years worth of political reporting (which is sadly little more than the regurgitation the propaganda of business and political leaders). ~CF