Le Batard: "Time to open a new chapter in my life"

he's such a wet blanket

 

Let's not forget the unwavering loyalty and job security they provide.

 

In the early-mid 1990s it was one holy shit after another.

 

I'd really like to hear from somebody in the Miami market exactly how many "holy shit" columns DLB has written in the last five years. With apologies to Dennis Miller, I suspect you might be able to count them on the one hand of a bad woodshop teacher.

I don't think that means he's been stealing money for five years, but it makes me wonder if his mega-salary could be justified in an era in which consolidation is gutting copy desks (and straining the survivors) and beat writers/photogs are having their lives turned upside down by more demands on their time (i.e., mandatory online content quotas) without a corresponding increase in pay.

If DLB was skating these last few years and resting on the reputation he developed in his early days as a top-five guy, then I have even less respect or sympathy for him than I already did.

 

Dan has always been a bit, shall we say, melodramatic. However, in this instance I think he's just the latest in a line of those who sucked out all the dollars they could until they realized the dollars were, in fact, doing the sucking after all.

Look what happened to Screamin' A Smith. Eventually his column became such a joke, the Inquirer had to take it away. Kornheiser barely writes any more and when he does, it's a mail-in most of the time. It's impressive that Plaschke manages to keep up the quality but I wonder how long that can last.

TV hires these guys because they have the credibility viewers want, but then demands so much of their time that there's no way they can do their "day" job properly. Thus the credibility that made them attractive in the first place gets destroyed. Screamin' A. was sending in columns by BlackBerry, for cripes sake.

I don't think Dan did anything particularly noble here; he just played his mid-life crisis out for the readers and viewers. I don't doubt for a second, though, that he is drained empty. He won't be the last.

 

Isn't this why The Herald gives its employees vacation time?

So, exactly what is in China and Spain that will recharge his batteries? He's going to spend a year making sure he gets to his kids' birthday parties?

This whole thing is a fraud. Months ago, when he mailed it in on a couple of columns, an editor somewhere should have had the guts to send it back and say, "This isn't good enough. Send in something else and this time, put some effort into it."

 

A tree falls in an empty forest, with no one within earshot.

But we'll still have him, electronically.

Gosh, we're so lucky.

 

How many editors have the stones to risk the hissy-fit that would trigger or the end-around when golden boy (or girl) columnist runs whining to the glass offices?

Department heads are running scared these days, often without the union protection that their underlings have, thus sniffing the wind at all times to see what their bosses want. One thing top brass doesn't want is a pseudo-celebrity columnist of perceived value in the market kicking and screaming on their office carpet.

So department heads are managing up like never before, letting the grunts fend for themselves and enabling the big egos, while the product suffers, staff morale evaporates and the day job gets turned into the "B" or "C" gig. You expect one of these middle-management cogs to take a stand on quality or honest effort or teamwork? Fat chance.

 

DLB is one of those columnists who when he tries, he's as good as they get, and I mean that as a features writer, not as a columnist...

Early in his career, he was amazing. He broke all kinds of new when he was on the UM beat, which I think was his first beat.

With the exception of a few ESPN the Mag articles over the last several years, he's been very mediocre for quite some time...

Tremendous talent who has been phoning it in, IMHO...

 

joe,

you write like you have the stones. So how would you go about telling the star columnist, the voice of the section, a guy who probabaly makes more than you, a guy who probably is more important than you ... that he is not pulling his weight?

work not up to par: would you spike a column? send it back on deadline? demand that he hit one out of the park every time?

not a team player: would you make him write a sidebar? contribute to a notebook?

ego out of control: (no idea how you address this)

I'm not being sarcastic. I'm just pointing out that what you suggest isn't easily carried out.

 

This is what happens when newspapers let their columnists add TV and radio and magazine gigs.

All of a sudden, they don't wanna write the column anymore, though that is where their real strength is.

They just wanna suck up to T.O. and get him on the air.

Newspaper columnists aren't media stars. The good ones are comfortable with that. The good ones like to bang out great stories and then go looking for more.

 

An editor is supposed to act in the best interests of the paper. If you want someone in that position there just to massage the ego of a popular columnist, then you probably have additional departmental issues to deal with as well.