I know it is a different time in the media.

I know there are so many ways to access information, from credible sources, rumor mill sources and AI developed stories.

There is the internet, sportstalk radio, television, streaming.

I understand the world has changed but just asking this.

Don’t you miss not having a daily newspaper that can provide you something different.

Back in the day, the 1980s on..we had the San Diego Union in the morning and the Tribune in the afternoon, with full staffs competing against each other.

There was the Escondido Times Advocate, the Oceanside Blade Citizen, the Daily Californian-El Cajon.

And of course the LA Times, Orange County Register, LA Daily News, the Riverside Press Enterprise and others.

Most of it is gone now.  The arrival of the new way to get information.  The decreased circulation.  The cost of print.  Earlier deadlines for content.  Printing papers out of town.

The era of full staffs, competing columnists, enterprise stories-gone forever.

A quick look at what was vs what is.

UNION-TRIBUNE..Granted we have1-major league team, the Padres, the Aztecs in college sports, and the emergence of SDFC-San Diego Wave in soccer.  The big events, Delmar, Torrey Pines Golf, and high school sports get coverage.The sports section is now more cut and paste wire service stories, pictures, some syndicated stories, and a couple of beat writers.

Lost in the think tank process of what your sports section should be is this idea.  Find a way to add freelance columnists to deliver a wealth of opinions about their area of expertise, a couple of times a week.  Give me an NFL columnist, an NBA columnist, someone to cover-write NHL-AHL hockey.

Do the same about the PGA-LIV, all things auto racing, plus expanded columns on high school sports.  Dedicate consistent notes column space for the Gulls-Sockers.

Notes columns are much more interesting to read than cut and paste columns from the wire service.  Prime example is the use of college football writer Jon Wilner, based out of the Bay Area, who does a great job on the Pac 12, the Mountain West, and the former football-basketball powers from the West Coast.  Clone his content to all the other topics.

Your deadline times are way too early for game stories, but there’s alot of data about all 30-major league teams, so you go find someone to write about and express opinions.

LA TIMES…The changes are so radical, I hate ‘reading yesterday’s news tomorrow’…that’s what their once proud sports section has become.  

Two-day old Dodger game summaries, outdated box scores-standings etc.  Give me a notes column from someone who can deliver headlines and tidbits on the Dodgers-Angels and all MLB.

The same with the Lakers-Clippers and NBA notes; the Kings-Ducks and all things NHL; Trojans-Bruins and college athletics.

Do fans really like long-form feature stories on a topic, or lots of info from lots of sports.  Give me a NASCAR-Indy-F 1 notes column.  Tell me all things Tennis-PGA-Soccer.

I’d bet, there are so many good sports journalists on the sidelines, who might take up the cause to rally sports sections even on a freelance basis, they’d be willing to work part time.

I close my eyes and recall reading quality content from columnist Nick Canepa…NFL voice Jerry Magee…the battles between beat writers TJ Simers-Clark Judge..then RTV columnists John Freeman-John Maffei…the multifaceted Bill Center.

We have quality now in the likes of Mark Ziegler and Kirk Kenney, Kevin Acee and others, but there’s not enough diversity out there.

Any of that type content is better than what I see each morning in my Union Tribune and the LA Times on my breakfast table.

Maybe you sell more subscriptions and get more digital buyers, if the content was more well rounded, consistent, and diverse.

Full disclosure, I was spoiled, growing up in New York.  At what time we had 9-daily newspapers serving the City and Long Island.  I know it is a different time, but I grew up on that type of journalism.

I couldn’t wait to wake up to read the sports section, or get home and find out what was written in the afternoon paper.  That’s how you counter-act the loss of staff and the early deadlines, is with different content from freelance sources.  The economics to do something like that cannot be impossible.

Filling the sports section with my idea of layout and content I think would work, in print or on your cell phone.

If I were king, that’s what I would do to fix the UT & Times.

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