Newspaper downsizing includes offices

The decline of newspaper revenue and the continued reduction of staffs are forcing newspapers are make difficult decisions. It’s much like empty nesters wondering why they still need four bedrooms in their house.

My last two newspaper employers — the Newport News (Va.) Daily Press and the Durham Herald-Sun —have made the same obvious conclusion: The large buildings that they needed when times were good are way too big for their current needs.

The Miami Herald made a similar decision, and will move out of the huge complex next to the Biscayne Bay. When I interviewed there in 2005, and ultimately turned down an offer, I never had been in a newspaper building that large. What a beautiful building the Herald is giving up!

The Newport News Daily Press' home until later this summer
on Warwick Boulevard.

The Daily Press put its Warwick Boulevard plant up for sale last year not long after deciding to outsource printing.

Buried toward the bottom of a Sunday Herald-Sun column, its publisher, Rick Bean, announced that Paxton Media Group is selling the Pickett Road plant.

It’s been at least 8 years since I’ve been in the Herald-Sun newsroom. Even then, it looked like a ghost town of empty desks, cubicles and offices that were once full of life. I can’t imagine how empty it looks there now with all of the copy editors and designers in another state.

I haven’t worked at the Herald-Sun since 2005, but I run right past the building while running one of my frequent 5-mile loops to the Sandy Creek Trail and back. Soon, I’ll probably be running by a rather non-descript building.

The Herald-Sun building doesn’t quite have the same long history of the Daily Press building, but it’s still sad. The Daily Press still has its offices at the Warwick Boulevard location that’s been its home since 1968, but will soon move to City Center.  That complex, incidentally, also is the home to the Atlantic 10 Conference’s offices.

The Durham Morning Herald and the Durham Sun
called this downtown building home before both
newspapers moved in 1990.

I wrote stories at the Durham Morning Herald’s downtown office at the corner of East Chapel Hill Street and Market Street while working as a stringer in the early 1980s.

The Durham Morning Herald (the morning paper) and the Durham Sun (the afternoon paper) left quite a bit of history when they moved from downtown to just off the 15-501 bypass. They were located downtown there for years, at least since the 1940s.

They moved to Pickett Road in 1990 because they needed more space that now, sadly, is too much space. The two newspapers merged in 1991 to form the Herald-Sun. That was the same year that the Times-Herald, the afternoon paper in Newport News that shared the current building with the Daily Press, ceased publication.

The building on Pickett Road that has been home to the
Herald-Sun since 1990, but is for sale.

The difference between the Daily Press building decision and the Herald-Sun decision is that the Daily Press no longer needs a press since it is outsourcing printing. What will the Herald-Sun do for printing and what will be done with its press? I’m betting that the answer, like with the Daily Press, will mean even earlier print deadlines.

Less surprising was Bean’s announcement earlier in the column that the Herald-Sun will go to a metered paywall.

The Herald-Sun always has been slow to take the next steps in the digital world. It resisted throwing its content on the Internet for free long after most other newspapers were doing so.  In my view, that was smart even though people at the time thought management was crazy.

The metered paywall is just a natural progression. But will it turn around revenue for the newspaper? Probably not. Selling the Pickett Road facility will help somewhat financially. But like most newspapers these days, it still will be a struggle because cost-cutting continues to dilute the product.

Of course this all won’t matter to the Herald-Sun’s copy editors and designers since they all work in Owensboro, Ky. They might have trouble finding Pickett Road on a map, anyway.

Signing up for races early one way to save lots of money on increasingly higher registration fees

Early-bird specials for road races are our sport’s answer to Black Friday deals. We take advantage of them online, and aren’t forced to sleep on store sidewalks or arrive at a store in the middle of the night to save money.

I’ve complained in this space many times about the high cost of road races, and there was a good article in Esquire magazine on the subject this week. There are various strategies to combat this other than simply staying home.

You could only select races that cost no more than $25, which only works for races 10K or shorter … if you’re lucky. That can have its downside, as I found out with a $20 5K race on the UNC campus earlier this spring.

If you know well in advance which races you’d like to run, registering as early as possible will definitely save you some money.

I’ve already registered for races that will be run in November (the Outer Banks Marathon), March 2014 (the Tobacco Road Marathon) and April 2014 (the Tar Heel 10 Miler), and have saved $100 compared to the high prices charged near race days.

Even though the Outer Banks Marathon isn’t until Nov. 10, it would cost me $85 if I registered today. It goes up to $95 on June 1, $100 on Aug. 1 and $105 on Sept. 1. I paid only $75 because I registered in December.

The Tar Heel 10 Miler isn’t until April 26, 2014, and it will cost you $45 to register for that race between June 1 and Feb. 1. The fee rises to $50 on March 15, $55 on April 15 and $60 on April 26. But I only paid $35 because I registered before June 1. In addition, I’m supposed to also get another T-shirt sent to me in June because I registered so early.

The Tobacco Road Marathon is one race I always know I’ll run. I’ve run it all four years and can’t wait for No. 5 next March. When I got an email message this week saying that I could register for $50 through May 15, I immediately took advantage of the offer. That price goes up to $60 on May 16, $65 on Sept. 1, $75 on Nov. 1, $85 on Jan. 1 and $95 on March 11.

I compared the early-bird specials to Black Friday, which is when I registered for the Tobacco Road Marathon the previous couple of years. The race always has a 10%-off special on race registration on Black Friday.

With that already out of the way, I’ll do absolutely no Black Friday shopping this year. I’ve always preferred to buy items online rather than fighting the crowds in stores, anyway.

About the only time I enjoy shopping on site? At a race expo, of course!

Ready again to take on the challenge of Grandfather Mountain Marathon ... I think

I can still remembering that July weekend in 2001 as I walked up to the field house at Kidd Brewer Stadium in Boone. I was picking up my packet for the Grandfather Mountain Marathon.

My thoughts? What have I gotten myself into now?

I could be asking that again this July, because I've signed up to challenge the up-and-down course again this summer.

The course is absolutely beautiful: It starts with a lap around the track at Appalachian State University's football stadium and ends at the base of Grandfather Mountain with a lap around the track at the Highland Games. In between are lots of hills, but beautiful views that I've never found in any of the other 26 marathons I've finished.

With good reason, they say that you should add about 30 minutes to your normal marathon time for the course. My 2001 Grandfather Mountain Marathon was one of only two times it has taken me more than 4 hours to finish. I needed 4 hours and 14 minutes to reach my first marathon finish at the Marine Corps Marathon in 1994 and 4:06:16 to finish the GMM in 2001.

After my 3:33 PR at the Tobacco Road Marathon, I definitely think I can beat my previous GMM time. (To say those courses are contrasting would be an understatement.)

My goals will be to run a sub-4-hour-marathon and to not walk. I definitely walked a few times in 2001, and that obviously doesn't help my time. Even if I'm not walking the last two miles, one look at the elevation grade shows that my pace will certainly slow!

The more I can cut my time under 4 hours, all the better.

Between now and then, I believe I'll revisit the Chapel Hill long-run loop I did a few times preparing for my first GMM. It included the hills of MLK Jr. Boulevard (formerly Airport Road), Stroud Hill (East Franklin Street), Estes Drive and the hills of the UNC campus and of the Lake Forest neighborhood.

Race and school officials offer a new lodging option since the last time I ran: You can stay in an Appalachian State dorm room, which allows you to walk to the start on race day. I've been able to get to a marathon start without getting into a car only a few times: Both times I ran Chicago, the year I ran Boston and the year I ran Shamrock and stayed at a hotel next to the start/finish.

Two months to prepare for a fun challenge!