Next up -- ESPN??

Further proof no one's safe, I guess. ESPN slashing 200 from its workforce, although the key here is a lot of these are unfilled positions. Still, interesting to see who stays and who goes, if indeed any on-air talent is affected (not likely).

Link here: http://www.freep.com/article/20090128/SPORTS18/90128107/1050/SPORTS02/ESPN+freezes+hiring++expects+to+cut+200+jobs

 

Not good, not good, not good.

 

I've been interviewing with ESPN for my dream job since last April. Eight long months. I've been through sports pop quizzes over the phone, online tests, and a handful of phone interviews separated by months. My hiring contact called me Monday. Hadn't heard from the contact since October. The contact left a voicemail and we've been playing phone tag all week.

For the past four days, I've been wondering if reason for the call was to say "you're hired" or "sorry, better luck next time."


I think I now know the answer.
:-\ :-\

 

Most of the recent hires (at least for writers or on-air talent) were given multi-year contracts. I think it will be interesting to see how many are renewed when their contracts are up.

Here's guessing the majority of the college football bloggers will be gone very soon.

 

Is there any education behind your guess? Because I've heard from sources that the college blogging was a pretty big hit, actually.

 

You have to know trivia to get a gig with ESPN? Stump the Schwab?

 

People at ESPN have told me the higher-ups there were disgusted by the inability of the bloggers to break any news. The big exception was Chris Low.

They expected the college bloggers to deliver the way the NFL guys did and that never happened.

 

http://thebiglead.com/?p=10721

 

Take a guy with one beat covering one team and then make him cover 12 teams in one conference. You tell me what will happen.

 

Agreed, but some of them missed key news on the teams that they used to cover before being hired by ESPN. Miller was all over the Washington story as was Low with everything that was going on at Tennessee. The perception (I'm not saying I agree or don't) is that the rest didn't do that much.

 

I didn't follow the SEC bloggers, but I did follow Rittenberg who was doing the Big Ten. He had some good coverage, especially during the summer. I don't recall breaking news though. But that's not where I turned anyway for college football news. I wondered if the page views generated enough money though to warrant these expensive bloggers. I hope so. I'd hate to see even more writers losing jobs.

 

Sidebar: Talking about quizzes...
Any of you every take that bitch Knight Ridder copyediting or editor test? Good Lord, that was the worst.