RealGM

Posted: **Fri Jun 20, 2008 1:48 am**

I'm suprised that no one here has mentioned the staff cuts occuring at the observer now.

http://www.charlotte.com/business/story/673185.html

Observer publisher Ann Caulkins told employees that the paper will eliminate 123 positions, or about 11percent of its staff. The cuts will be made through voluntary and involuntary buyouts.

The paper also announced efforts to more closely align the Observer's news operations with the News & Observer of Raleigh, also a McClatchy publication. The papers are combining capital bureaus, sports staffs and research departments in an effort to eliminate overlapping work. Their features departments also will work to develop jointly produced sections.

Then the new "Bonnell" blog today is written by Stan Olson not Rick.
http://blogs.charlotte.com/inside_the_nba/

I have no idea if Mr. Bonnell is one of the folks affected or not ... but in any event this move is bound to affect the coverage of the Bobcats. Best case I guess is that we get better reporting and more Cats coverage in the N&O. Worst case is that things actually get worse.

Thoughts?

Posted: **Fri Jun 20, 2008 2:28 am**

I doubt that cuts would be good for Bobcats coverage.

As for Bonnell, I didn't notice that he didn't write that blog, but I think Olsen has written blogs before. It would be sorta funny if he was one of the ones cut. I'm a nice guy, so I might feel a little bad. But I guess that would explain his inexplicable run on blogs and actual Bobcat articles in the past couple of weeks -- "look guys, this is what I could be doing, don't fire me!"

Posted: **Fri Jun 20, 2008 1:58 pm**

Newest article on Westbrook is by Olsen too.

http://www.charlotte.com/bobcats/story/677997.html

Posted: **Fri Jun 20, 2008 4:09 pm**

Olson writting the blog again today:

http://blogs.charlotte.com/inside_the_n ... ort-w.html

Could Rick really be on the outs?

Posted: **Fri Jun 20, 2008 4:15 pm**

BigSlam wrote:Olson writting the blog again today:

http://blogs.charlotte.com/inside_the_n ... ort-w.html

Could Rick really be on the outs?

Going thru the other days' comments (yeah, I was in a weird mood) Olson actually posted and said he was covering for Bonnell...that he was "under the weather". Some of the other commenters said Olson normally writes about the Panthers.

And now we know for sure that Lopez was one of the ones who refused to work out for us.

Posted: **Fri Jun 20, 2008 6:22 pm**

Good luck with that, Brook.

Posted: **Fri Jun 20, 2008 6:28 pm**

There's no way the coverage would get worse. Bonnell leaving would most certainly improve the amount of coverage we get on the Bobcats. I also find it ironic that the Observer is cutting all of these jobs. Will they write an article bitching about themselves now like they do when Bob Johnson makes changes like this? Or is it a one way street?

Posted: **Fri Jun 20, 2008 7:23 pm**

Of course not.

But I should take the same sort of nonsensical approach that the vote_lover guy on the Observer boards uses (the Bobcats don't have the best attendance, and that is due to his "successful boycott" of the new arena), and say that the reason the Observer is doing so poorly and has to cut so much of it's staff is because it does a poor job of covering one of its professional sports teams, and when it does cover them, it usually a whine-filled rant about something the team did wrong.

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