APSE | Associated Press Sports Editors

Editor's note: Feel free to contact individual editors if you want more information or advice on dealing with the tough choices we all have to make.

In Connecticut, there is nothing bigger than the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry. And the Hartford Courant, which staffed both teams for 25 years, will no longer cover either.

After saying goodbye to 10 terrific journalists (seven buyouts, three layoffs), those left standing in the Sports department tried to understand upper management's plan. It felt as if they had lost everything, except their paychecks. And folks aren't too sure those will keep coming, either.

The philosophy, as explained by managing editor Bobbie Roessner, is to cover the hell out of the state. Let people get national and regional news elsewhere. The Sports Department counter is that the Sox and Yanks are local. Guess who won?

"We just don't have the resources to have reporters in Boston and New York and on the road with those teams," Roessner said. "But if anything happens in Connecticut, we'll own it."

So what's next? The Courant, the oldest continuously published paper in the nation, is starting from scratch. "More with less" is the most despised catchphrase in the building. But sometimes, unfortunately, cliches are reality.

In December 2005, The Courant had a staff of 40 full-timers (21 reporters). The September roster will consist of a columnist, nine reporters and a few overworked part-timers. The copy desk has merged with news and features to form a universal desk. Most of the sports copy is designed and edited by the folks who used to work in Sports, but those editors are also reading 30-40 features and news stories a week. Nobody is doing cartwheels over it. But Sports still has say over who copy edits its section.

"The philosophy is we'll concentrate on UConn, high schools, the state, the best stories out of Boston and New York," said executive sports editor Jeff Otterbein. "We'll be smart, innovative, interactive, bold, different. Now all we have to do is achieve it with far fewer people."

The Courant will use wires for most Red Sox and Yankees games, although they'll staff series between the teams and many other big games. That said, it will be nothing close to the spring training-to-World Series coverage Connecticut readers expect. The Courant stopped covering the Yankees and Giants in June 2007 and has relied on Newsday for both beats. It will be trickier with the Red Sox – the bigger team in Hartford – because there is no sister paper in Massachusetts. The Courant doesn't subscribe to Boston Globe or Providence Journal wire services, and it's unclear if either is available.

"We haven't figured that one out yet," Otterbein said. "I know baseball is extremely important in our area and we won't let the reader suffer. But with nine reporters, and all we have to cover, we can't have somebody devoted 10 months a year to one team."

Otterbein says the Red Sox and Yankees will still find their way onto the Sports front most nights. So will the Patriots and Giants on Monday mornings.

The daily section will be about 25 percent smaller. Upper management suggested not running box scores and wondered if the paper should eliminate game stories altogether – opting for more analytical and second-day coverage – but Otterbein fought and won that battle.

He has created a daily piece for the Sports front called "60 Seconds" on the prototype, a sportscast of sorts for the reader who doesn't have much time.

"I view 60 Seconds as a quick look [10-12 inches] at the day in sports seven days a week," he said. "It will be on the cover, artfully written with the voice of the writer coming through. It will have opinion and observations, be edgy and informative, and it will send the reader to the web for extras. It is not meant to be a score list or an index, but a signature part of the cover each day. Three writers will split the duties, but this is just part of what they would do on a given day."

The Courant's plan is to keep the Sunday paper intact, and Sports drives that paper. The rest of the week, more concentration will be put on the online product.

John Altavilla: UConn women's basketball, women's college basketball, Connecticut Sun/WNBA.

Dom Amore: New York-Boston reporter, help with UConn women. The Courant is viewing the NY-Boston beat largely as baseball but a good story in the NFL or NBA is a good story. Otterbein says "we'll do what feels right."

Mike Anthony: UConn men's basketball, college basketball, GA in the offseason.

Desmond Conner: UConn football, college football, weekly college column on UConn/college football; college basketball column.

Part-timers Matt Conyers, Nick Carboni and Zac Boyer will largely be in the department helping with the nightly high school/college load. The Courant also relies on fall interns.

The mood in the building has been grim. Some good journalists were let go for no reason other than their beats were eliminated. Everybody feels vulnerable.

A new beginning could be exciting, but the redesign won't roll out until late September, so for now, The Courant's Sports department tries to tread water. Otterbein feels, or at least hopes, the worst is behind us. He has concentrated on doing what he can to keep spirits high and the staff motivated. He and his management team have embraced the new design and think they have created some clever, interactive devices.

"All things considered," he said, "we've all still got pretty good jobs. Many people would kill to have our jobs. We write and read about sports. We use our creativity every day, even on our days off. We'll continue to do that and continue to have fun doing it. Just a lot differently than in the past."

The cuts across Tribune have been tougher than most of us have ever experienced. I've been through several rounds of buyouts in the last 10 years or so, but never anything quite like the most recent batch of layoffs, in which we lost several people who were real pros and who played very important roles in our regular coverage. Our horse racing coverage has, at least temporarily, been reduced to occasional assignments on major events. Our prep coverage will probably focus only on perhaps the top 25 programs in our region of 600 schools. Our depth and flexibility have been compromised. Hockey coverage will almost certainly be affected, and the loss of three copy editors and two page designers will spread us even thinner in the evenings ... even as we try to expand the duties of everyone involved with production of the paper to production on the web.

In addition, a 15 percent cut in space has reduced our section at least two days a week to six pages, a level I've never seen before at The Times. I understand that a 33-column midweek Sports section at some papers is adequate, and many would die to have it. But we've been used to at least another nine columns over that even on the slowest days, and despite staff reductions, we'd easily – and gladly – fill it.

To be sure, the mood is very dark; everyone is on edge and struggling with watching so many friends and people they've worked with for so long head out the door.

So how do you get through it? I sense that as we move into the next few weeks, people will be eager to move ahead and will crave stability. It's up to us as managers and department leaders to try to provide that as best we can. The obvious answer is that we all have to try to push the malaise to the side and concentrate on doing the best job we can. Sounds almost trite. Sounds easy; of course, it isn't. But there is a certain therapeutic quality in throwing yourself into a project or a story and producing the kind of journalism we all got in the business to do. It's harder every day because there are fewer and fewer reporters and editors to turn to, but it's still possible. There's really no simple way to allay people's fears about the future of the business, but we can't control that. All we can do is help each other do the best we can. It's not that we should forget the folks who are no longer here, but it's important to look forward rather than backward. It's the only way to remain creative and productive.

Budget, space and staffing cuts are forcing us to focus more than ever on our local teams, athletes and events. We are looking for any way to tell a story in less space, and if there's not some kind of local tie or connection to our market, chances are that story won't be done.

In more concrete terms: We just covered our last Wimbledon and French Open. We won't be covering the U.S. Open for the first time I can remember. It's all about figuring out what is absolutely necessary.

At the Globe we lost four valuable staffers in April who took buyouts, including two veteran writers, columnist Jackie MacMullan and national NBA writer Peter May, whose expertise was sorely missed as the Celtics began their drive to their 17th NBA championship. On the inside, we lost two assistant sports editors, Reid Laymance and Ken Fratus. The worst part about that: Now I actually had to do some work. The staff was depressed about the departures and worried about their own future.

Then, surprisingly, some positive things happened. The remaining assistant sports editors, Greg Lee, Scott Thurston and Greg Lang, have willingly and enthusiastically embraced new duties and relished more responsibilities. We could never replace Jackie and Peter in the coverage of the NBA but we did the best we could. In fact, because the Celtics were on their way to a championship, we didn't have time to feel sorry for ourselves. There was too much work to do and everyone started doing it. The NBA Finals were the best thing to happen to us. We covered it well and our readers had some excellent sections as keepsakes.

Now, we're past that and we're still adjusting. We made some staff adjustments, taking two regional sports reporters and bringing them onto the sports staff. They still have work to do for the regional sports sections but will be more involved in the main sports section. We've done and will continue to do less in some areas. I've moved our Revolution beat writer, Frank Dell'Apa, to the Celtics and promoted Marc Spears to national NBA writer, replacing May. Our Revolution coverage will be much less but we're using one of the regional reporters, Monique Walker, to cover the team part-time. There are many smaller events that now go uncovered, i.e. our local state Olympics, the Bay State Games. We did very little with Little League baseball. The smaller local colleges will see less coverage as we move some writers into new positions to replace the ones who left.

Our sections will be smaller because we have fewer reporters to provide stories and fewer editors to produce the section.

Our goal, however, is to make sure the sections we are producing are good ones. Our focus will be the Boston pro teams. That coverage remains pretty much unchanged in terms of manpower and space. We've trimmed back from the edges. Some readers notice that but the ones focused on Boston's pro teams (the vast majority) do not. Our aim is to keep them satisfied.

In 2007, the newspaper lost 17 newsroom staffers, including 10 full-time employees. We lost two part-timers.

Our travel budget was cut about 20 percent and our space was reduced by about 10 percent.

As far as personnel goes, I'm lucky in that our chairman Allan Block and my editor-in-chief and co-publisher John R. Block believe in newspapers. I will have some openings down the road due to retirements and I've been told there's a good possibility of filling the positions. I hope (and pray) that will be the case. I have no reason to believe otherwise.

We had some major buyouts: 73 people took them, including many in sports. The new org chart has been released and sports is now 12 reporters, 4 editors and 3 columnists. We are trying to stay strong by focusing on our core: the four pro sports, the two local college teams and the SEC. We also are putting most of our energy on our online product during the week and the Sunday paper. We have to make tough choices and its better to say no to some things than to pretend we can still do it all. We are launching new initiatives online and giving up some things in print. Its the only way to survive.

I've been at The Sun about two years and in that time we've had three buyouts. Between buyouts and people leaving who we couldn't replace we've lost 19 people. Everybody's job has changed to some extent and we've had to re-organize the department three times. Some reporters will have to take desk shifts in offseasons. We're also undergoing our second redesign in less than a year. We went to a tabloid on Dec. 4 and by the end of August we'll be back to a broadsheet. Reporters have had to learn how to write tighter and editors have had to make tough choices each night on what we can fit. It all comes down to priorities and we're trying to maintain – and actually improve – coverage on our core beats – Ravens, Orioles, University of Maryland football and basketball, and high schools. Some coverage has suffered including small colleges and horse racing. With less space, daily horse racing results have moved to the Web – and we're the state that has the Preakness. Tough choices and tough times. But everybody is looking forward to the redesign and creating a new, improved Baltimore Sun.

AUGUST 2008 NEWSLETTER STORIES

• Northwest Region report (8/29)

• Leitch: Don't be afraid of Web hits, they pay the bills (8/28)

• Carrig: A small paper with big ideas (8/27)

• Football stats made easy (8/26)

• Great Plains Region report (8/25)

• LLWS: Every Sports Editor's nightmare doesn't have to be if you follow these tips (8/23)

• Writing short – and good – high school game stories is still possible (8/22)