The Star Tribune produces one of the best sports sections in the country. Routinely offering 10 pages or more, the Star Tribune has the space and large staff to cover local events (from the prominent to obscure) better than probably at any time in this market’s newspaper history. But recent news about the sale of the newspaper and the morbid state of newspapers across the country makes one wonder how much longer readers will enjoy such thorough sports coverage.
When circulation and ad revenues decline, newspapers cut back on staff and space. Earlier this week there was news that Pennsylvania’s largest newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, would terminate over 60 news people. The St. Paul Pioneer Press parted ways with many reporters last fall, including sportswriters, and for years there has been speculation the paper will be replaced by the Star Tribune.
Gregg Wong, a sportswriter for the Pioneer Press for many years before retiring in 2002, said his former paper doesn’t cover outstate news like it once did and some time ago closed its Minneapolis bureau. The paper has retrenched and Wong agrees that at some date in the future the Twin Cities market will be a one newspaper town with the Star Tribune in control. “It’s just the trend of the newspaper business,” Wong said. “There are more and more one market towns.”
Talk of declining circulation and ad revenues at the Star Tribune makes it easier to understand how the newspaper could have been purchased for $1.2 billion by the McClatchy Company in 1998 and sold to Avista Capital Partners late last year for $530 million. Still, given the difference in the two purchase prices it was a surprising sale.
Does Wong think there will be cut backs in sports at the Star Tribune? “Almost certainly,” he said. “Advertising dictates the size of the paper. My guess is the paper will cut jobs. They have always been over staffed. You see certain by-lines once per month. You wonder what (else) they do.”
It’s no fun to lose your job at a top newspaper like the Star Tribune even with favorable severance packages. The pay scale for writers at both the Star Tribune and Pioneer Press has long been among the best in the country. Union policy dictates certain minimum pay levels depending on years of service. A reporter with six years or more of service with the newspaper will earn a minimum of $1,300.00 per week. Reporters and columnists can earn considerably more than minimum.
The absence of younger readers, people in their 20s and 30s, has challenged newspapers for years. Internet advertising is growing and ad revenue is declining for many newspapers in the United States. Wong said the Star Tribune made a redesign of its paper to attract a younger audience but he and another source said the change hasn’t been successful.
If the Star Tribune produces a smaller sports section will it bother him? “To me it will probably be a loss as a reader,” he said. “The average reader isn’t like me. Younger readers get their news from a BlackBerry, Internet, radio and TV.”