The sport of NASCAR took yet another blow Tuesday.
No a track didn’t close or lose a race nor did a team fold or a major title sponsor pull out. In a lot of ways this was much worse.
The NASCAR Scene will soon not be a Scene at all.
Street and Smiths publications laid off most the staff of the oldest weekly newspaper dedicated exclusively to NASCAR. Some had been at their jobs for only a year or two, others for nearly 30. There were no long goodbyes, farewell parties or the like. Just a sorry, here’s the door, leave your keys.
While anyone getting laid off is devastating, especially to those involved, it’s something that sadly is happening all across America. These particular layoffs were far more distressing to the sport of NASCAR.
Along with the layoffs, Wednesday it was confirmed that the NASCAR Scene a weekly newspaper that has been the source of information for millions of NASCAR fans for decades, will soon go away.
The loss of the Scene is yet another troubling sign for a sport that has seen its share of struggles in the last few years.
Amid the sagging TV ratings, the loss of sponsors and the empty seats, the last thing NASCAR needs is the loss of an outlet that could be counted on to report what goes on in the sport week in and week out.
The cutbacks among media that once covered NASCAR on a regular basis has been nothing short of epidemic. Media centers that were once full now have as many empty seats as the stands, and newspapers that could once be counted on to report on NASCAR every week have stopped or have simply gone away altogether.
The people who work with the media at NASCAR have tried their best to make it as easy as possible for reporters to get information. With videos of press conferences available along with high quality photos and transcripts, it’s never been easier to cover a race. As with any good public relations staff, the people at NASCAR want nothing more then to have the sport covered and reported on.
But as newspapers have folded and websites have sprung up but yet to have really taken the place of newspapers, the outlets that will report on NASCAR have become fewer and fewer.
Now the one publication that could be counted on to ‘be there’, won’t.
And it gets worse.
NASCAR Scene didn’t hire just any writer off the street. The writers were the ‘best of the best’; many media members aspired to work at the Scene for just that very reason. Now though some of the best writers, and photographers, are without a job and NASCAR is without those voices and those eyes. And with fewer and fewer outlets covering the sport the chances that these talented people will be reporting on NASCAR again anytime soon are very slim.
Someday the Internet may fully replace newspapers, but right now its still trying to find its way, still evolving. It’s mainly unregulated; there are more people who call themselves ‘reporters’ then there are real reporters.
Until the Internet can replace newspapers, using trained reporters, overseen by competent editors and without outlets such as NASCAR Scene, it will be a very bleak landscape indeed.
Related: It's Official: NASCAR Scene ceases publication
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Comments
<em>"Now though some of the best writers, and photographers, are without a job and NASCAR is without those voices and those eyes."</em>
That was said when Yahoo fired their NASCAR "yahoos" with very few exceptions those writers found a new homes online writing on their own and... good news.... any revenue generated isn't shared via a corporate master.
Newspapers can't compete with the internet. The problem I find with printed media isn't the fact that I have to pay for it, it's the fact that by the time it arrives 90% of the news is old news that I've already seen on the internet.
In the interest of the fan that enjoys the printed media,why doesn't NASCAR pick up the pieces and continue where Scene left off. The reason many of us stopped subscribing to Scene was the delays in the delivery of the paper. Poorly run and managed is the reason for most business failure.
Regarding Doug's comment. You want Nascar to own the magazine that reports ojn themselves? That would be nothing more than a PR arm. Also,see how ISC and SMI got into the diecast business? How'd that work out for them. NASCAR reminds me of our government more and more with trying to get into every little thing--we dont need more of that from the sanctioning body.
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