Ames Tribune and DSM Register

[capitalcityguy]

My comment wasn't so much on quality of writing as the real business decisions. Randy is much older and I am assuming much more expensive (although it's not like they are making huge bucks). Add in everything else that Tommy covers and he is much more diverse and better set up for the future than Randy is.

His age and diversity in coverage helps, but as of now, the Register seems to want to have one dedicated writer covering Iowa and one covering Iowa State. Unless that changes (and I doubt it will since their analytics tell them that the school specific stories by give them the most clicks), they're still going to need a dedicated ISU guy if Randy is given early retirement. If you give that to Hines, who covers sports for the Ames Tribune? If you give it to Birch, then his "diversity of coverage" isn't really utilized anyway.