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The Athletic keeps growing .......

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Fran Curci, Feb 3, 2018.

  1. Severian

    Severian Well-Known Member

    That's prevelant at other news orgs, and it's one of the most annoying things to see. Often, I see four or five people sharing the story on Twitter:

    "Excellent piece by @whoever. A must read."
    "YOU MUST READ THIS"
    "Stop what you're doing and read this story by @whoever. Hire him/her. Now."

    I read the story and, more often than not, it's shit.
     
    JimmyHoward33 likes this.
  2. wicked

    wicked Well-Known Member

    Twitter often is a big circle jerk for the 2 percent of the population who uses it.
     
    Severian likes this.
  3. cake in the rain

    cake in the rain Active Member

    Perhaps you have had a different experience or know people with a different experience, but that is the exact opposite of my understanding.
    It's not traffic count so much as subscription conversion count, but those two things are usually linked.

    ...And I admittedly don't know everyone who works at the Athletic, but of the people I do know, zero are working on a fixed term contract.
     
  4. This is not accurate. Maybe some of the really big names have three-year or more contracts, but most are on one- or in some cases two-year deals based on what I've heard. Some were able to negotiate being at-will.
     
  5. playthrough

    playthrough Moderator Staff Member

    Reading the local tea leaves, Zak Keefer has likely been hired away from the IndyStar to cover the Colts.
     
  6. silvercharm

    silvercharm Member

    I said they have deals that extend as far as four years. Of course that includes many 1 and 2 year contracts. But there some with three and four-year deals.
     
  7. Fredrick

    Fredrick Well-Known Member

    This does seem to happen a lot. I agree it's lame and the stories are nothing special. Yet ... The Athletic is revolutionizing the industry. It's making it and newspapers are not.
     
  8. Fredrick

    Fredrick Well-Known Member

    I have a question to the suits on here. Or the regular folk. Do any newspapers actually make determinations on letting a reporter go or stay by virtue of his or her pageviews? Are you serious? I mean ... page views have NOTHING to do with how good a story is. Comment on this if you would.
     
  9. LanceyHoward

    LanceyHoward Well-Known Member

    I am sure that if you are a national reporter like yourself audience metrics are a major part of your evaluations. But are beat writers on local papers being routinely removed because of poor metrics?
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2019
  10. Fran Curci

    Fran Curci Well-Known Member

    I don't know if people are being removed for lack of clicks, but a pretty good local paper I know definitely tells reporters, "Hey, your clicks are low," or perhaps more insidiously, "So-and-so has a lot more clicks than you lately; that shouldn't be the case," or some such.
     
  11. wicked

    wicked Well-Known Member

    Vanity traffic never made sense to me, especially because ad revenue is small piece of the pie.

    Get people coming back often enough where they want to plunk down whatever you charge a month.

    The way you do that is by creating compelling stories, whether they’re text- or visual-centric.

    It’s not that difficult.
     
  12. Elliotte Friedman

    Elliotte Friedman Moderator Staff Member

    I assume metrics are a big part of my evaluations, but rarely (if ever) know what they are. Ive seen people driven crazy by repeatedly seeing their numbers and find it unhealthy.

    Several Athletic reporters have told me they are made much more aware of the importance of metrics than at their previous employment.
     
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