We all know by now that times are tough in the newspaper business, but I was still surprised and disappointed to learn recently that staff cutbacks by GateHouse Media, the Fairport, NY-based owner of several Massachusetts dailies, had stilled the keys of one of the best Pats beat writers and columnists there is.

Douglas Flynn, who had covered both the Bruins and Pats since his arrival at the MetroWest Daily News in 2000, learned in October that his position would be among those cut.

Since its inception, the Sunday Links has often taken issue with certain coverage of the Patriots, but never with Flynn’s. Along with being a deft, thoughtful writer, Flynn was clearly a football fan at his core, and his appreciation for and curiosity about the game produced the kind of work that is too often in short supply in an increasingly sensationalistic media environment.

As a news consumer, I look at it like this - treat me with a little respect, and tell me something I don’t know. Nasty screeds about alleged sycophantic fat guys in Bruschi replicas illuminate nothing and contribute nothing. They’re craven attention-grabs designed purely to manipulate and infuriate, and promote an undeserving writer who thought so little of his audience that he would insult them for his own personal gain.

It was in those times that I most appreciated honest, sincere reporters like Doug Flynn, whose respect for his readers was a given. His clever piece on special teams gunners from early August is a great example; by peeling back the detail on an element of the game that we often overlook, he told me something I didn’t know.

His reporting often did. I had a chance to chat with Doug recently about his separation from the Pats beat, his take on today’s media, and his future plans.

Did GateHouse’s cuts at MWDN come as any surprise to you?

Cuts in the newspaper business have become so widespread, it’s hard to be surprised by any of them anymore. Still, I had no idea that I was about to be laid off. I had actually spent the day in Foxboro working on stories for the upcoming weekend and wasn’t informed of my layoff until my arrival in the office that night, so I was taken completely by surprise by the news. I was informed that the decision had nothing to do with the quality of my work and that it was due only to financial conditions. Obviously, it was a disappointing end to my tenure with the paper, but I am proud of the work I did there and I am appreciative of the opportunities I did have while writing for the MWDN.

MWDN has always had superlative Pats coverage, by people like Mike Reiss, Albert Breer, and you. How will the paper cover the Patriots now?

First, thank you for the kind words and for putting my in that company, particularly with Mike Reiss, who I have worked with, consider to be the best on the beat in this market and am proud to call a friend. I would also be remiss to not point out the work of Tom Curran, who is now one of the top national football writers for NBC.com but cut his teeth with the MetroWest and really was the first to bring the paper’s coverage of the Patriots to prominence. He is also someone I feel fortunate to have worked with and call a friend. As to the future, I obviously have no say in how the paper will continue its coverage of the Pats. I was told when they let me go that they would be focusing their resources on local sports, a strategy that many mid-sized papers have adopted, and that they would rely primarily on AP and the other Gatehouse papers (the Brockton Enterprise and Patriot Ledger) for copy on the Patriots and other Boston pro teams. Glen Farley of the Enterprise and Eric McHugh of the Ledger, who had the only Pats stories on the MWDN web wite I could find when I checked this week after receiving your email, are both solid beat guys who provide quality coverage and I would also assume that MetroWest columnist Lenny Megliola will continue to write about the Pats on occasion.

It seems to me that the end effect of all this will be fewer choices for fans seeking team coverage, which is kind of ironic considering a glut of choices -like those on the Internet, but on TV and radio too - is one of the things hastening this ‘redefinition’ of traditional media. Removing your professional hat for a moment - as someone who is at heart a passionate football fan, how do you view these developments?

I think even without the loss of many writers from the mid-sized papers due to economic conditions, there was already a lack of different voices in the market. Despite the addition of so many new outlets on the web and shows devoted to sports on TV and radio, too often it’s the same people expressing the same views or reporting the same news on all the various platforms. It would be nice to see more opportunities for some new voices and opinions, but that is harder now with fewer and fewer mid-sized papers covering the team on a regular basis.

If you could be Media Czar for a day, what things would you change about the profession?

It would take a lot more than a day to make any meaningful change, but if you could make it a full-time gig I’d be glad to take the job since I could use the work about now. On a more serious note, having returned to the perspective of a fan rather than a part of the media, my top wish would be to see more time devoted to actually talking about sports and the games themselves, rather than the soap-opera subplots and attempts to generate controversy that too often dominate the coverage in the papers and discussion on the airwaves.

If you had been able to finish the 2008 season with the Patriots, what kind of story do you think you would have written?

The only regret I have about leaving the MetroWest Daily News is that I had to do it in the middle of the season and couldn’t see the campaign to its conclusion. While last year was an amazing thing to witness and record with the club’s quest for perfection, I think this year’s storylines are even more compelling in many ways. Watching the maturation of Matt Cassel, seeing the defense trying to overcome the loss of leaders like Rodney Harrison and Adalius Thomas, gauging whether the club can return to its underdog roots and make it back to the Bowl, those were ongoing themes I would have enjoyed continuing to chronicle. There were also many individual stories I had planned to pursue. In fact, on my final day in Foxboro I sat down with Lonie Paxton for a one-on-one interview and spoke with Chris Hanson and a number of other special teamers for a Patriots Beat I had planned to write about the role of the long snapper, similar to a story I wrote earlier in the season on gunners.

In your career, you’ve covered football and hockey, and done some radio and TV. Yet you’re a Brown grad with degrees in History and Afro-American Studies. What’s next for Douglas Flynn?

That’s something I’m still working on. While I’d love to continue covering pro sports, with the current state of the newspaper industry I don’t really foresee staying in the business. As much as I enjoy writing and loved the time I spent covering the Patriots and Bruins, it was probably time for me to move on anyway and look into alternatives that allow for a better standard of living than a career in the newspaper world. I’m currently exploring some opportunities in public relations and also considering going into teaching, which was my original plan when I was at Brown before I got sidetracked into journalism after a brief stint in grad school on a fellowship for a doctoral program in military history at Ohio State. I probably won’t ever completely abandon writing though. I am currently discussing a book project on the Bruins’ tradition of tough guys and the bond between the enforcers and Boston’s fans (tentatively titled “Big, Bad and Beloved”) with several potential publishers and will always be looking for an outlet for my creative side, so hopefully you haven’t read the last thing from me yet.

I hope that’s true. As fans, we need more writers like Douglas Flynn, not fewer.

Scott Benson is the Editor and Co-Founder of Patriots Daily. He can be reached at scott@patriotsdaily.com.

The Pats are off this weekend after Thursday night’s disappointing loss to New York, so the Sunday papers are kind of light this morning. Still, a few links stand out.

Top Links

1. Patriots Report Card, by Ron Borges, Boston Herald. As he did on Friday morning, Ron continues to insist no torch was passed when the Jets outlasted the Pats with an overtime win in Foxborough. The Pats did do enough wrong lose their divisional lead, so fair grades all around here. He couldn’t be more accurate with his assessment of Ben Watson. We have a saying around my house: “NEVER, NEVER F**KING THROW THE BALL TO BEN WATSON!” We wore that out on Thursday night, unfortunately.

2. Putting out the welcome Matt for Cassel, by John Tomase, Boston Herald. In the wake of Cassel’s tour de force in a losing effort, Tomase looks ahead at the quarterback’s options as he approaches free agency. Allow me to cast a vote for ‘franchise him.’ You mean to tell me the Pats will put four years into this guy and then let him walk away for nothing just as he begins to show some value as a NFL player? God forbid.

One other thing - this idea that Cassel can’t throw the deep ball?  What about the ball he threw to Randy Moss on opening day against the Chiefs? The 66 yarder against San Francisco? The one to Jabar Gaffney, which could have made the difference in Indy had Gaffney managed to hold on to the perfect throw? Those suggest to me that he can.

This morning I’d like to try something new with the Sunday Links. I’m looking for something a little less time-consuming, for one thing.

I’m less inclined to link everything I read/find on Sunday morning. It seems by the time I’ve written a coherent reference for each link, and Word-Pressed them into your living rooms, you could have found them all for yourselves, and had time for breakfast.

That just increases the SL pointlessness factor ten-fold. The sponsors are starting to get a little restless. You don’t think the folks at Tidal TV want some clicks? I have to do something.

Today’s Top Ten Links

People love lists. There’s something about lists that makes people want to read them and say, “This list sucks. I could make a better list than this.” That’s why Rolling Stone has chosen the Top 500 Rock n Roll Albums of All-Time eight or ten times already. Lists are gold, Jerry.

Lists are also easy. A couple of sentences and a bullet point and you’re out of there. It’s like the one-night stand of writing. I feel like Sinatra or somebody. The money’s on the dresser, baby.

So I figure I’ll ‘go cliché’ and take this occasion to launch my own top ten list of the best Pats links in this morning’s Sunday papers.

1. Gaffney comes to grips with it, by Chris Gasper, Boston Globe. Gasper grabs the top spot of our debut effort simply for pointing out that though eight games, the Pats have already gained 67% of the rushing yards they had all of last season. And while you’ll no doubt read elsewhere this morning that Jabar Gaffney is presently well short of his 2007 production, only Gasper notices that Gaffney is actually ten yards ahead of where he was last year at this very point.

by Scott Benson
scott@patriotsdaily.com

In the NFL, you never know, because shit happens.

Not too long ago, today’s game with the St. Louis Rams was considered a sure win for Tom Brady and the defending AFC champs. After all, the Rams lost almost as many games as New England won in 2007, and the jury remained out on whether Scott Linehan could ever reverse the slide that first began when favored St. Louis was upended in Super Bowl XXXVI.

Um, so much for that.

Now, it’s a big game for both teams, and it will be imperative that the Patriots continue their vigorous play from last Monday night. They’ll never make the playoffs if they’re up one week and down the next, as they’ve been over the last month.

As David Puddy likes to say, though - it’s gonna’ be rough.  The Rams are streaking after firing Linehan, promoting Jim Haslett, and beating the Redskins and Cowboys in consecutive weeks. Talk about shit happening.

There is one thing you can count on in this rapidly changing world - the Sunday Links.

In the Globe, Christopher Gasper has the former worst team in football just trying to do things right.

by Scott Benson
scott@patriotsdaily.com

With the Patriots not scheduled to play until tomorrow night, it’s time for a shorts-and-shells Sunday Links.

In the Globe, Mike Reiss has Tom Brady confirming a second procedure on his injured right knee to treat an infection that developed after his first surgery. Didn’t the same thing happen to Peyton Manning? Where are they performing these surgeries, by the way? On the locker room floor? Don’t they do them in hospitals anymore?

Also - all this time and who knew? TomBrady.com?

Reiss also visits with former Pat Daniel Graham, who will return to Foxborough for the first time since leaving for the Broncos in 2006. Point of order - I am a big Graham fan, but what’s with his bitchiness about the Pats? “Everybody might just see the glory because they win all the time, but it’s not always like that.”

Foreboding stuff. Is he suggesting that the front office doesn’t take the players for ice cream after practice? Who writes his material? Ron Borges?

by Scott Benson
scott@patriotsdaily.com

It’s another groggy Sunday morning here in New England, with late night playoff baseball taking its toll. The best thing I can say at this point is that our body clocks ought to be all set to easily handle the Patriots’ first prime-time appearance of the 2008 season.

Let’s grab the toothpicks to force our eyelids open for another sprint through the Sunday Links.

In the Globe, Chris Gasper reports that the Patriots have activated first-year runner BenJarvus Green-Ellis for tonight’s match with the Chargers. This may mean we won’t be seeing Laurence Maroney or LaMont Jordan, and it will be left to Sammy Morris and Kevin Faulk to keep the Pats running game on the roll they began last weekend in San Francisco. Maybe if they have a good night, BenJarvus will finally get the Glengarry leads. Which are for Closers!

In his weekly scouting report, Jim McBride is undeterred by these developments; he likes the underdog Pats by nine.

Like any good tourist, Scott Pioli has done some shopping on his West Coast junket. Did he stop at that little shop in Fresno? Gasper has the details.

Mike Reiss goes behind enemy lines to talk Oakland Raiders with cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha, whose captors are “treating him well.”

by Scott Benson
scott@patriotsdaily.com

The Pats finally end their interminable Miami/bye-week hangover this afternoon when they land at Candlestick Park for a suddenly important game with the 49ers.

The start of their 10 day West Coast road trip gets - fortuitously, I think - pushed below the fold by the ALDS in this morning’s papers, but it’s right up front in this week’s Sunday Links.

In the Globe, Christopher Gasper says Matt Cassel and Randy Moss spent their downtime trying to make a connection. A big game from Moss today - half a dozen catches for a hundred yards, say - would go as far as anything to assuage local concerns for the team, I figure.

Gasper then turns his attention to jinxing Stephen Gostkowski, who will bring a string of 14 straight field goals into blustery Candlestick today. He misses a kick today and it’s on you, Gasper. Your colleague Jim McBride is at least holding up his end in his weekly scouting report, picking the Pats in a low-scoring struggle.

Mike Reiss has three national scouts breaking down Patrick Willis and Jerod Mayo in another expansive edition of the Football Notes.

Over at the Herald, John Tomase says no one was circling this game on the calendar before, but Bill Belichick and the Pats need a win today. Tomase says Frank Gore’s at the top of the list of things to keep your eye on.