one, two, three strikes you're out...

... of the pressbox.

As a dismal sign of the times, Murray Chass on Baseball lists the 29 newspapers (out of 60) that cover major league teams that are sitting out the World Series. Clearly, a cost-cutting measure by struggling newspapers looking to cut costs by pooling coverage. Bad idea.

A few years back, we took a tour of Fenway Park (had a hot dog atop the Green Monster, thank you very much) and were allowed into the pressbox -- tiers of computer hookups, telephones, and comfy chairs. Because there were often more sportswriters than seats, there was another room behind it for the overflow, with big screens tracking the action from several angles. Surely not the best way to cover a game, but still.

Here's Chass' list of those papers whose baseball beat guys are also watching baseball via the tube -- their own:

These are the newspapers that traveled during the season but are not covering the World Series:

Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal	Orange County (Calif.) Register
Arizona Republic	Palm Beach (Fla.) Post
Atlanta Journal & Constitution	Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Baltimore Sun	Pittsburgh Tribune Review
Cincinnati Enquirer	Providence (R.I.) Journal
Cleveland Plain Dealer	Sacramento (Calif.) Bee
Contra Costa (Calif.) Times	St. Paul Pioneer Press
Dallas Morning News	San Francisco Chronicle
Dayton Daily News	San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News
Detroit Free Press	Seattle Times
Detroit News	South Florida Sun Sentinel
Fort Worth Star Telegram	Tacoma (Wash.) News Tribune
Houston Chronicle	Tampa Tribune
Minneapolis Star Tribune	Worcester (Mass.) Telegram.

quick hit: up from the ashes?

Interesting news out of Seattle, proving that once again, the reports of journalism's death in general, and newspapers in particular, may have been greatly exaggerated.

The New York Times reports that, since the demise of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle's remaining daily newspaper has begun to turn a profit. When the PI went out of business, many of the subscribers just re-upped with the Times.

Meanwhile, several of the online news site that have sprung up since the PI closed up shop, are doing well.

From the story:

... But The Times has improved its prospects by picking up most P-I subscribers and managing to keep them so far. It says its daily circulation rose more than 30 percent, to more than 260,000 in June, from about 200,000.

Oddly enough, what remains of The P-I is also faring better than expected. The Hearst Corporation kept the paper’s Web site alive as a news operation with a small staff, heavily reliant on more than 200 unpaid bloggers who write on things as diverse as their neighborhoods, cooking and marathon running.

Industry analysts called it a long-shot experiment, but SeattlePI.com has kept most of the reader traffic it had as a newspaper site. Hearst will not say whether it makes money, but it says that audience and revenue are ahead of projection.

And:

SeattlePI’s news staff of 20 people, down from The P-I’s 165, covers only a few subjects closely, like crime, the aerospace industry and transportation, while offering links to news on other sites. Michelle Nicolosi, the executive producer, said the site, rather than resembling a traditional news organization, “is trying to be Seattle’s home page.”

Other news sites populated by former P-I staff members have also cropped up, expanding Seattle’s already-vibrant range of alternative news choices, and turning the city into something of an online news laboratory.

Andy Rooney on Newspapers

For those of you who got chills -- or even teary -- watching the closing credits of "State of Play", here's more. Click on the link for a video of Andy Rooney's ode to newspapers on 60 minutes a few weeks back.

I originally had the video embedded, but for some reason couldn't turn it off, much to the chagrin of some loyal readers. That's why it's gone. bk