Last Monday the Los Angeles Times announced it would be slashing its personnel, cutting 250 employees including 150 in editorial.  According to a source that just lost their job at the Times, that number includes at least 13 people in the sports department, with an editor, and seven reporters (as well as a full two-thirds of their prep sports reporters) getting the axe.  All told, they lost nearly a third of their sports staff.

In a memo to the staff, Times Editor Russ Stanton blamed the usual suspects (a faltering economy and the big, bad internet) for losing the Times enough ad revenue that the layoffs became necessary.  Yet some, including my source, see the Times as having a flawed coverage model.  “They cannot possibly be the local newspaper for every local high school in Southern California,” they said.  “The Times painted itself into a ‘no-win’ situation when it took on all the high schools in the City and Southern Section.”

The area of sports coverage most likely to be affected is prep sports, of course, probably because it provides less ad revenue than the major pro and college teams—this is the primary flaw in the “We’ll cover everything” model.  They would need an ad team bigger than the editorial staff to take advantage of all the local markets they’ve covered, if they wanted to do it right and get enough money back to pay for what it costs (in reporters, print space, copy editors, etc.) to cover all those markets.

I feel about these cuts much the same way I have about the Press-Telegrams: sadness mixed with a little anger.  Sadness because obviously less reporters out there means less coverage and less people working to make sure city governments are staying in line, and that good athletes are getting the coverage and recognition they deserve; anger, because I feel for the writers and editors.  Publishers and media corporations have been blaming the internet for a long time while sacrificing their own staff.  The fact is, yes, the internet hurts print advertising, but it’s the responsibility of publishers and parent companies to figure out how the internet can make up that revenue.  This has worked in some places (mostly smaller publications and companies), but others haven’t figured it out, and have footed the bill to their reporters and editors—many of whom have worked for these places for years, or decades.  At the Times, some of these long-time staffers were given two weeks’ notice that they’d be losing their jobs, or less.

My biggest concern is for the welfare of the LA Times Varsity blog, which has provided some of the best up-to-the-minute coverage of local prep sports available today.  It’s my understanding that they’ve lost a lot of guys over there, and I’d be shocked if they can maintain the quality they’ve offered as of late, though I’m sure the Times’ official word would be that of course the coverage will be as good as it was, if not better for having shed all that “excess staff.”

The fact is, these cuts are nothing new (certainly not at the Times), and they’re not about to end either.  Where and how people get their news in five years is unlikely to look anything like the way it did five years ago, or maybe even today.  The more it’s becoming apparent that large corporations have no idea how to manage local sports coverage and niche advertising markets, the more vital sites like this one are going to become, providing specialized information and coverage to a specialized market.  It’s a shame that so many people are losing their jobs—unless they can get picked up somewhere else, that’s a ton of personal knowledge that’s being sent out the door.  That said, if the Times and the Press-Telegram are going to drop the ball, we’ll be happy to pick it up and run with it.