Bad news in Spokane, both for Tips and U.S. Division
Published 9:52 pm Friday, October 3, 2008
Sounds like a rough night for the Tips tonight as they got beat 5-0 by Spokane. A young Everett team still has a long way to go before it can match up with the defending Memorial Cup champion.
However, there’s other news out of Spokane I wanted to relay. Spokane Spokesman-Review sports writer Jessica Brown, who’s covered the Chiefs since the beginning of last season, was unfortunately part of the Spokesman’s latest round of layoffs. I got to know her a little bit during the playoff series between Everett and Spokane last season, and she did an excellent job covering the Chiefs during their Memorial Cup season, so this was disheartening news. She’s vowed to do everything she can to keep covering the team, either by fighting for her job or working as a freelancer, and I wish her the best of luck in those efforts (you can keep abreast of the situation through the link to her blog on the left).
Jessica isn’t the only U.S. Division writer who’s suffered from cutbacks. Freelancer Jim Riley, who has covered both the Tips and the Seattle Thunderbirds for the Seattle Times since 2003, has seen his workload scaled way back. The Times is no longer covering Everett home games unless it’s against the T-birds, and it no longer intends to staff every Seattle home game. It makes me wonder whether the Times will even continue covering the T-birds after they move to Kent. The situations with both Jessica and Jim mean considerably less coverage within the U.S. Division, which is a bad development for the WHL as a whole.
It’s been a rough road in the newspaper business recently. It seems every week there’s news out of some newspaper in the state about layoffs, something we ourselves have had to deal with at the Herald. With more and more people turning to television or the internet, both for their news and their advertising, and with the national economy as a whole struggling, our industry has taken a major hit. It’ll be interesting to see whether we find a way to adapt to the new working environment, or whether we’re destined to fall into obsolescence. I certainly hope it’s the former.
Anyway, I just want to take the opportunity to thank everyone who’s supported both our paper and myself. Believe me when I say that we appreciaite everyone who appreciates us and what we do. Hopefully we’ll be able to continue giving you the best local news coverage possible.
