By David Scott
Boston Sports Media Watch

Just as GateHouse Media Inc. continues to snatch up papers, word is filtering into Shots about just how ugly the takeovers are becoming locally.

The daily papers appear to be those most immediately affected by last year’s purchase of the Community Newspaper group from the Boston Herald (and other local broadsheets and tabs that were scoffed up).

It would seem that the GateHouse Way is tightly tied to the bottom line and the worker bees are starting to stir.

We’ve previously chronicled how the regular, nightly sports editors must now dedicate an extra hour of time to posting all the print edition’s stories to the web (at the end of what are already 12 hour-plus days for many of the editors/writers). Now, further news of deeper cuts, cost-saving and employee-disrespecting are coming to light.

Some of the papers and associated websites feeling the weight of the GateHouse door, include: The Enterprise (in Brockton), the Daily News Transcript in Dedham, The MetroWest Daily News, also in Framingham, The Milford Daily News, The Patriot Ledger in Quincy, and the Daily News Tribune
in Waltham.

Shots has been told by separate editorial staffers that he Brockton Enterprise is to be eliminating most (if not all) of it dedicated pro sports coverage. The Enterprise will, instead, pick up the Patriot Ledger’s pro sports content. (There are even rumors of a grievance being filed on behalf of the editorial union members to protest the decision which signals a clear intention to trim staff.)

Beyond that, Shots is also told that the Enterprise is moving to a “universal copy desk, where news editors will be editing sports copy and vice versa,” said one of Shots’ GateHouse inhabitants. “Sportswriters who work the desk on non-game days will be editing town meeting stories. . . and that (strategy) is also a possibility for the Ledger.”

Take that as advance warning if the name of, say, Mike Krzykewski ends up looking like “Sheshefski” in a future BC game story. Likewise, if some Town Manager finds his name going from “Lemnios” to “Chelios,” the reasoning will most likely be that a sports guy was editing the Conservation Commission meeting story.

If that’s not ridiculous enough for you, the Ledger still does not have a full-time sports editor per se, as Mike Loftus has been wearing that hat, in addition to his Bruins beat fedora. Other writers at the Ledger - Mike Fine, for example, are expected to handle two of the city’s most labor-intensive beats (the Red Sox and Celtics). The Humble One, Ron Hobson – even in semi-retirement – may be called in for some janitorial shifts if he’s not careful.

It’s a complete joke and “morale” (the newsroom equivalent of “body language”) is at an all-time low. And that’s saying something, considering the predominantly miserable assemblage of bitter, cynical people we’re talking about!

This is all not going to end well, we can guarantee you that. The GateHouse properties are going to go through some strife, that’s seems evident. But just as scary is that the Herald continues to be plagued by a constant aura of uneasiness. The paper’s website’s development and evolution is taking longer than necessary and the impending loss of content-sharing with the former CNC papers is going to make a noticeable difference across the board.

If the question is where would you rather be right now, at the Globe, the Herald or the GateHouse Group?, your answer would have to be: “In another industry.”

Shots maintains that, ultimately, the Globe is going to be best place to be as long as the New York Times maintains committed to fixing the screw-ups of the past decade. But all bets are off if one of the new media companies like Google, Yahoo! or a dozen other NM dabblers decide to partner with any of the three combatants.

. . . Do we even need to get into how woefully inadequate the websites of most of these papers remain? It would be one thing if the shift to the web and condensing of resources was resulting in better web coverage and presentation – as of this date, there are few indications that will be the case at the also-ran GateHouse properties. The picture emerging is one showing only a few of the myriad websites remaining, under one umbrella – likely the Wicked Local parasol.

• Excellent move by the FOX folks who are showing condensed highlights of the amazing Fiesta Bowl between Boise State and Oklahoma and running it on FOX Sports Net affiliates. On Thursday we were able to catch the game for the second time and it was just as enjoyable. Really worth DVRing if you find it on again. It looks like they will be replaying other BCS Bowls as well and using its own college sports channel as an outlet (FOX College Sports). (And yes, the marriage proposal is included in the condensed version.)

. . . Speaking of FSN - did we just imagine the whole Gary Tanguay wearing glasses thing? Did he get the Glenn Ordway laser surgery? Or is it just a fashion accoutrement?

. . .Donny Marshall gets his play-by-play chance on Friday night’s Celts game at Memphis, and we’re confident in saying it will be miles better than the West Coast trip Greg Dickerson experiment. Dickerson was totally miscast and the awkward call-ins from Tommy Heinsohn didn’t help one iota.

The highlight, by far, was when Danny Ainge sat in alongside Mike Gorman. (Ainge, by the way, was part of a trio of Celts higher-ups who took in the Providence-Marquette game at The Dunk on Thursday night, with the express prupose of checking out MU’s guard Dominic James, who went over to Ainge pre-game and shook his hand.)

. . . “Moving the Chains” author Charlie Pierce could not have been thrilled with his Golden Eagle Warriors display in a 15 point loss to PC, but we’re confident enough that the Crean’s Kids are legit, that we’ve scheduled in the UConn-Marqy game this coming Wednesday, as well, for CSTV.com’s legendary Hang Time blog.

• I do enjoy when readers/listeners/users take the effort to do research that exposes supposed experts. RRSafety went to town with his 1,800 word missive.

That said, it would be better to have the writer’s real name and not just his message board handle.

•
TJ Simers, on fire.

• This is exactly what you do when a member of your network’s broadcast team comes down with laryngitis before the game.

This was exactly what you don’t do.

. . . Nike strikes again with the Anna/LeBron challenge. Brilliant on so many levels. (We tried to link to nike.com, but the site was responding at 1:15 am EST on Friday – odd, no?).

. . . Truly tremendous insight from Northeastern’s Peter Roby is included in this story (from Bruce McLellan) on the hiring of Nick Saban.

• I’ve got a special place in my heart for the new wave of live-bloggers, so it’s no surprise I have some love for the boston.com high school blog from the recent Holiday hoops Tourney at Chelsea High. When we’re talking about “getting local,” this is what it’s all about: becoming a destination spot for people to find about their towns, and, in the case of sports, their teams. In real-time.

• We couldn’t resist checking out Shots in Japanese.

• Is it just a coincidence that the Track Gals reported Doc Chuck was in Aruba AND Shots’ neighbor flew on the same American flight to Aruba with Terry Francona? Could it be that Tito and The Good Doc are sharing Aruba time together? How do we get to vacation with Doc Chuck? Or Tito, for that matter?

Can we call the Sox/Globe Travel Folks for that trip?

. . . The TGs also tried to the stir pot a bit with suddenly single QT/QB, (getting less dull) Tom Brady.

. . . This was a pleasant discovery regarding ESPN’s Erin Andrews . She, we learn, used to watch The Big Three with her dad, JUST LIKE US. (Be sure to check out the photo play with the story as well – we just love leisure photos, don’t you?)

. . . Shots is looking forward to getting in a bit of Hot Stove, Cool Music on Saturday night AND a good weather, December Pats/Jets game on Sunday.


FEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

We’re mostly going to be freeloading for the Saturday night HSCM show (featuring some formation of all-time Shots’, and Peter Gammons’, faves, Little Feat).

(EDIT 1/6, 12:46 p.m. EST: The original version read: “Hotlanta’s own, Little Feat” - however, as a wikiShotsUser points out, Feat are not Atlantans. We got lazy and fell into the ’southern’ trap. And we apologize. It is a sad day when Lowell George gets blasphemed and I regret the error. As punishment and lesson, I have dug up George’s “Thanks, I’ll Eat It Here” on 8-TRACK - no joke - and I have slapped it into the ElectroBrand 8-track player/turntable/AM/FM sound sysytem. “20 Million Things” is currently stuck on repeat - I’m at 80 million things and won’t stop until a trillion, billion. And many thanks to our own, personal, rock and roll Wiki).

But that doesn’t mean you can’t either get over to the show (or accompanying events), and it surely doesn’t preclude you from donating a few shekels.

. . . Young Nephew Jake has again finagled his way into the fourth ticket for the Pats game and the Official “Shots/Double R Tailgate ExtravaGANZA” and it’s likely Jake’ll be repeating his successful Panini Maker role. The kid makes a heck of a panini.

Enjoy the Spring weather with a dog you love and as always, stay alert.

David Scott writes from a seaside shanty on the shores of Hull, Mass. And can be reached at shotsATbostonsportsmedDOTcom