We've had a chance to meet Sean on a couple occasions, and we knew about this for a while, but didn't want to say anything until he was officially done.
Sean's a good kid. He came in with no experience (just like everyone else) and was put in a terrible position right away. He was in a no-win situation with the ridiculous 5 p.m. deadlines imposed upon him. None of his stories were published in a timely manner. For a paper covering just one high school, it's insane that writeups took two days to get published.
Paxton Media had some strange ideas about sports. Obviously, it had a low priority. They also stressed coverage of elementary and youth sports, figuring that parents and grandparents of the youngest athletes were a huge untapped potential for newspaper sales.
Now we're all for recognizing youth sports, but not at the expense of timely coverage of high school sports. A lot of good stories are being missed, and we can't put all the blame on Sean.
By the way, Sean's heading to Wisconsin, where he'll be working for a television station.
Sean didn't leave quietly, though. One of our regular contributors passed along Sean's Facebook status update on his final day at the Herald-Press.
Sean Gggy is done at the Herald-Press. Sad to leave co-workers, but glad he doesn't have to deal with management anymore. If you have a position of authority in Paxton and are reading this, you're likely an idiot.
Needless to say, Sean will be leaving quite a bit of frustration behind him.
The Herald-Press search for a new sports editor is going on. There's an interesting discussion going on at sportsjournalists.com about the Huntington position. Apparently there are quite a few people who have had experience with Paxton and the way they run things.
In the meantime, sports at the Herald-Press will be handled by Austan Kas, who is the sports editor at Peru, another member of Paxton's Central Indiana Newspaper Group (CING). Kas, a Huntington University grad like Giggy, has his roots at the Herald-Press. He started there under the previous staff, serving as a part-time writer. Looks like he'll fill in until a new sports editor is found.
Bob Hammel, George Frye, Paul Siegfried..... a legacy of great sportswriters, all of them award winning. These owners do not care one bit about the people of Huntington nor do they care one bit about the kids who put forth the effort to represent this community in many, many ways. Its sad.
ReplyDeleteWhy am I not surprised this is happening with a Paxton paper, particularly anything being handled by one Neal Ronquist?
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