Lynn Hoppes to ESPN

"Someone on a website already has ripped me..."

It annoys me when people do this. SportsJournalists.com is not Lord Voldemort. You're allowed to speak its name.

 

It also wasn't accurate. He wasn't being ripped for "abandoning newspapers." It was because of the perception that he had encouraged everyone else to stay loyal, while then turning around and jumping ship himself. But as he explained, his loyalty is to journalism, not necessarily daily newspapers.

 

Licorice. Screen. Fucker.

 

Isn't it Web site, not website? Man, he's already abandoning AP style??

Seriously, congratulations. I'm celebrating any hiring news these days.

 

i rarely post, so excuse my dropping in on all you vets of the message board.

i don't know hoppes, in fact only heard of him here. but i'm 100 percent on board with what the aptly-named writethinking scribbled. fwiw and by way of perhaps telling you why i agree with wt, i have 24-plus years of print experience, followed by the past 2-plus in online (to paraphrase hoppes himself: it's all the same work to me). my workplace (or should i say shop? -- not sure of the protocol here and not sure i want to know. so scratch that.) is rumored to be on the clock for layoffs again.

so while i'd would never begrudge hoppes his good fortune, a guy like me (and perhaps writethinking, though i don't want to speak for him) who would never be able to sniff a job @ espn has a hard time working up a lot of enthusiasm, given the world for the rest of us. jealousy? probably some. but i can live with that because i can live with two more things: my effort and my track record. unfortunately, these days for most of us, that may not be enough.

thanks for your time, and carry on.

 

and the majority are crap - they don't fully understand the user

sites such as ESPN, Yahoo, SI.com combine way more of what on-line users want than merely Joe Columnist's latest

 

not many organizations escaped the wrath of 2008 markets, and its not like Yahoo lost 1500 from its newsroom

my point, however, is it's short-sighted to criticize someone for moving to a place that is at least investing in its newsrooms

Isnt that what we all want?

 

But do these well-trafficked sites have what advertisers want? Without corporate help from ESPN's TV revenues and Yahoo's search and fantasy play, are these sites making any money?

 

ESPN.com has a lot of stuff on it. I dare you to try to find a schedule of what's showing on ESPN channels, though.

 

If you look at the list of writers who Hoppes hired when they were relatively unknown only to become big names in the business, it's amazing and it's not a coincidence.

Rick Maese (working newsside at an afternoon paper in New Mexico)
Joe Schad (part-time at Newsday)
Jeff Darlington (still in college)
Charles Robinson (some small paper in Michigan)


The list is endless and reads like a Who's Who in Sports Journalism.

Nobody in this business looked harder for young talent or spent more time having his staff develop young talent than Hoppes and the staff at the Sentinel.

Juliet Macur
Jerry Brewer

There are a ton of them.

ESPN is getting a great one and not surprisingly, newspapers are losing one of the last great sports editors.

 

cut the guy some slack. it's difficult to speak from both sides of your mouth.

 

But will Hoppes be allowed to find a recruit young talent and bring them to ESPN? Or will he be a babysitter for the Gregg Easterbrooks, Scoop Jacksons and Bill Simmons of the world?

If they let him work some high-ceiling (and CHEAPER) twentysomethings who know what Web readers want into Page 2, they might actually be able to reinvent that page.