My Old Paper

One of my old newspapers, the Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune, announced the kind of cuts we've seen elsewhere in the news business, but the deepest cut of all was stopping delivery in Port Charlotte.

Why? Because I worked the paper's Charlotte bureau when we went head-to-head with the evil Gannett Fort Myers News-Press and two local papers. The county was at the time one of, if not the, fastest growing county in the U.S.

And we kicked ass. As in, a year or so after I'd moved on, the FMN-P finally moved outta town.

All that, for nuthin.

True story when I worked there -- one time the Herald Tribune created an "I" team for investigations. Says me: "Oh good. We've put the 'I' in the SH-T." Editors, unamused.

The paper will still be available in racks and stores, but it's not the same, not for the reporters and sure as hell not for people in Charlotte County. It's a business decision, maybe a necessary one, but it sucks nonetheless.