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Tony Jackson, the Dodgers beat writer for the Daily News, has apparently been laid off, per KABC post-game show host Josh Suchon and chatter at SportsJournalists.com. Jon Weisman reacts at Dodger Thoughts:
This means that the Los Angeles Dodgers will be covered on a full-time independent basis by one daily newspaper writer (Dylan Hernandez of The Times) and one daily Internet journalist (Ken Gurnick of MLB.com).Not too long ago, you couldn't have counted the number of Dodger beat writers on two hands. What have we lost since that time?
He goes on to list breadth, depth, fun, watchdoggedness and timeliness. I have to believe that LANG will put somebody on the Dodgers who probably reports for all the papers. For that matter, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the singleton papers here essentially merge sooner rather than later — a veteran staffer suspects they would run the Daily News et al as bureaus out of a hub in West Covina.
* Updates: Just to clarify, Jackson's Dodgers stories were already feeding the other LANG papers and the Orange County Register as well. Not sure what happens now. Apparently there was some in-chain politics over who pays for Dodgers coverage. Also, ex-beat writer Diamong Leung — laid off earlier in Riverside — blogs about Jackson from his new base in the Bay Area. Rob McMillin posts at 6-4-2, and readers are posting sympathies and kudos at Jackson's DN blog, which has not been updated since Wednesday.