Howard Bryant takes over ESPN magazine back page from Chris Jones

I am surprised.
Once was a time any perceived slight against Chris Jones, the Wordsworth of his Times, would create all sorts of hurt feelings around here.

 

They're all gone and left Private 93 D guarding the legacy

 

They don't need this place for the cycle of praise when they can do it on Twitter.
They do need worshippers like Devil, though.
The more unread, the better.

 

More a backlash of a person telling a black man to get to the back of the bus. I'm guessing that reference was noticed by others.

And I'm not the "worshiper" that started the thread. It's a wannabe coffee repairman.

 

How am I a "wannabe coffee repairman"?

That doesn't make sense. If you want to make fun of me, call me a wannabe something else.

I'm an actual coffee repairman.

 

So much for your espresso braggadocio. :

And tell us, actually: How do you repair coffee?

 

There were multiple problems with Devil's post (which is not surprising).

I chose to focus on the poor aim of the putdown, rather than the poor wording.

 

Well, good for Howard. I've always enjoyed his work.

 

Interesting to me, and ignoring the normal tomtrollery here, Jones is one of the most lauded magazine writers in the country with not one but two high profile magazine gigs and a shelf of awards recognizing his work at both.

That's not an opinion, that's, well, a fact. National Magazine awards lists are pretty easy to find, if you know how to type.

But, here's where it gets interesting, are awards a true measure of the writer or of the publication it appears in?

How much of the access is from the publication or the pure skill of the reporter.

Would someone from VQR or Oxford American, to name two good magazines with low profiles outside the literary world, get the same access as someone from Esquire or ESPN?

Its one of those things I've experienced freelancing. You do get treated different by sources when it is high profile pub assignment. I suspect we all, or at least those of us in the biz and not repairing coffee machines and such.

I guess the argument becomes the awards don't matter but recognition from ones peers does is an interesting contradiction.

This is just one of these things I've been thinking about recently.

 

There is something to that. I remember years ago, when I covered an NFL team for a suburban paper, calling the agent of a high-profile player about a contract negotiation or some such. I told him the name of my paper and he asked me, "What's your circulation?" When I told him, he wouldn't talk to me because the paper's circulation wasn't big enough.

 

Who the heck is this new FOB columnist, Mina Kimes?

Anyone? Anyone?

 

Kimes will be a senior writer covering “the intersection of commerce, business and sports fans” as well as working on narrative and investigative pieces.

No doubt that job description will interest Yankee Fan