Media news: more sportswriter departures
We just learned of some more big-time departures from the newspaper industry from here in the Bay Area.
The Bay Area News Group–controlled by MediaNews Group and responsible for the Contra Costa Times and the Oakland Tribune–has let go of Eric Gilmore, Bill Soliday, Dave Del Grande and Warriors beat reporter Geoff Lepper.
Soliday covered pro football, while Del Grande was a fantasy/media news writer. Lepper’s departure comes, to me, as a bit of a surprise. Lepper was one of the more popular and well-read Warriors reporters in the area, especially for the readership of the Tribune, which is essentially the home-area paper. He also kept a successful Warriors blog on the Oakland Tribune website. His recent coverage of the Baron Davis situation was top-notch.
All had articles published as recently as June 25th, with Lepper having Baron Davis stories in print yesterday.
At this moment, it is unclear who will fill the holes left behind. Letting go of Soliday and Gilmore now means that the MediaNews Group papers have let go of four football-dedicated writers from their Bay Area newspapers in the last two years: Soliday, Gilmore, and former 49ers beat writers Dennis Georgatos (San Jose Mercury News) and Roger Phillips.
The person who filled me in on these departures summed it up well: “Newspapers are suffering. Readership is down. So what do the newspapers do? They get rid of some good people, thus making their product even less attractive.”
Yeah, that’s a pretty good way to put it. I wonder when newspapers will start trying to regain their readership to become more profitable again, rather than letting go of the very reason people were reading their product in the first place. Soon, I hope.