New Enquirer beat writer

[Lobot]

There's a new name on the UC beat for the Enquirer. Fletcher Page has taken over rfom John Fay who was splitting time with the Reds beat. Page comes over from the Bengals beat.

https://www.cincinnati.com/staff/50539/fletcher-page/

[CroninCrazy]

He looks to be a UK fan and from the area.

[blackattack]

He looks to be a UK fan and from the area.

Great.......................

[Lobot]

I think he's realized the Enquirer needed to up it's coverage here. He's actually not two days late with everything so far.

[longtimefan]

Hope so. My guess is they have a lot of work to do to win back all the readers they lost.

[Lobot]

Annnndd..... He's gone.

Per his twitter, His wife took a job in Athens GA and he's out soon.

[Gilenerm]

Oh Jeez! Fletcher did a good job. Kept up with the web based guys and was much better than his predecessors.

[Lobot]

Oh Jeez! Fletcher did a good job. Kept up with the web based guys and was much better than his predecessors.

I have to agree with that. Saw where he's sticking around until the end of basketball season.

[Lobot]

There will be a new , new beat writer. Fletcher Page's last day was yesterday according to his twitter account.

[longtimefan]

There will be a new , new beat writer. Fletcher Page's last day was yesterday according to his twitter account.

if they even bother to have one.

[Lobot]

Plain Dealer up in Cleveland basically folded today so you may be right.

[bearcatjd]

Scott Springer wrote the latest article about the Bearcats. I wish they would bring him back full time. I always enjoyed his writing & he's a die hard Bearcat fan.

[London 'Cat]

Plain Dealer up in Cleveland basically folded today so you may be right.

This is truly a problem in America right now and going forward. Who will hold local governments accountable in the future? If there are no local "papers" reporting on what local governments are doing, it could lead to severe corruption in local government. It is happening far more often than any of us are willing to admit. And, as government at all levels - federal, state and local - is being infiltrated by those independently wealthy and powerful, it sets a very scary and bad precedent. Sorry for infusing politics into this, but it really is part of the overall issue.

[Lobot]

I have to agree with you on this. It's not just newspapers though. Local TV, papers and national magazines are being gutted by private equity firms and investment groups right now. They are disassembling media groups left and right and selling off the parts. This is has led to the firing the most expensive talent. The groups then try to rescue the website portion of the business with cheaper labor.

Some of these private equity firms have both profit and a political agenda in mind and that's not even including some of the really large papers like the Washington Post, Las Vegas Review-Journal, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, NY Post and others that are basically owned by "oligarchs" right now. Those "oligarchs" keep those papers afloat financially but they all have a political slant in one direction or the other.

On the sports website side, Deadspin comes to mind. The new owners tried to come in and make sweeping changes to the site to appeal to more readers and the writers revolted and quit en masse. Just this week I saw where Maven, who owns Sports Illustrated these days, fired Grant Wahl, the best soccer writer in the country, with no severance, no warning and no explanantion. SI is a shell of what it used to be because of Maven. Gannett, which owns the Cincinnati Enquirer, merged with Gatehouse to escape bankruptcy. Gatehouse is owned by an investment group and there were layoffs almost immediately on the Gannett side.

It's stuff like this that's led to the rise of The Athletic, which has successfully picked off all the good writers from the major media corporations as they try and cut costs. A lot of people are trying to replicate the success of that and I'm not seeing a lot of good competition there so far. The Athletic is run and privately owned by two former Sliicon Valley execs.

[Lobot]

And we have a new, new beat writer in Keith Jenkins.

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/spo...at/5310558002/