Media guides/ebay

First, I think current reporters selling media guides on ebay is wrong.

Does that change for one of the newspapers closed in the past year? I know one recently closed newspaper (some of you might be able to figure out which one I'm talking about) that has decades of media guides that are about to be thrown out. The media guides apparently are not being included in the newspaper archives that are being preserved and are heading to the dumpster very soon.

It doesn't feel right to me, but do you guys think there is an issue for some of the former sports writers -- all still unemployed to the best of my knowledge -- to gather up those media guides before they're tossed and see what, if anything, they can get on ebay for them?

A quick look at ebay, by the way, shows media guides actually don't make much money, but a few make a little bit.

Anyone know what the Rocky sports guys did with their media guides? Or any of the recently-closed papers for that matter.

 

Sell them. I don't care.

 

Get rid of 'em. I did a few years back when my shop closed. We had hundreds. Management told me to get rid of everything in our department...so I did.

This will sound odd -- but those WNBA ones have some rabid fans who will shell out $30 or $40. If you have any of those...get rid of 'em. Seriously.

Although, now that the information is often on team sites, I'd be surprised if you get much for them at all in 2009.

 

What do you think I could get on EBay for those old ABL guides (the old rival to the WNBA)?

Or should I donate them to the Smithsonian?

 

I've been savings media guides for years with the intent of selling them on e-bay. Mostly guides of championship teams. I haven't gotten around to doing it yet, but I don't see anything wrong with it.

 

Is it okay to sell media guides on eBay while on furlough?

 

Ha!

Okay - First let me say - I doubt I will ever do journalism EVER EVER again.

When cleaning out my desk from my very last journo job last year, I came upon 2 mint condition Red Sox media guides from their championship years. I don't think they'd even been cracked open.

Ebay and $$ flashed through my head - "Hey, this could help pay for school... or books... or a book. It would be poetic! A nod toward the change in my life. I'm not bound by these old rules anymore!" And yaddity, yaddity, all that shit.

And for whatever reason, I couldn't do it. Felt dirty. And yet, I hated myself that I couldn't.

So I literally flung them onto a Red Sox fan's desk, and so hard that I'd no longer call them mint -- I hate the fuckin' Red Sox.

That said, I begrudge no one who does sell the shit.

I guess I should be posting on, "Having a Hard Time Tearing Away From the Biz."

 

Sell them, and get all you can get.

 

My old shop had media guides dating back to 1965 when they were just these press pamphlets. I always wondered how much coin they could get for them.

 

Sold a big bundle of them from an old beat at an old gig. Used a friend's account and gave him a cut of the action for his time. As for the ethics, well, I was done with the beat, I'm not going back, and the money paid off a bill, which I wasn't able to do for three years under my old shop's "raises."