Not to stir the pot

I heard that CBS Sports finalized at least half of the 32-team NFL Correspondent gigs in connection to Bleacher Report. Bleacher Report is saying they had 2,800 applicants, mostly fans I would assume. They narrowed it down to two per team and CBS Sports conducted phone interviews and then made the final decision.

Gig would be, from best I can tell, mostly a Twitter/Blog type deal, posting short updates -- 30 or so -- from practices and games.

 

Wait, so 140 character updates from training camp.

"The Patriots finished training camp on Monday and Tom Brady looked exquisite as he connected on many passes before he left camp early with"

Oh wait, out of space.

 

Yeah, that's the way I understand it ... minus the out of space part. LOL.

 

What was the pay again on this? I remember it not quite being enough to take seriously.

 

Only $400 a week. My understanding is that the pay was coming from a third party -- a temp agency I believe. Also told that this could lead to more down the road, but that's not concrete.

 

decent part-time money, but if you have to be at practice every day, that's edging out of part-time commitment territory.

 

I can confirm the positions have been finalized, but the announcement of the official list of 32 names will be released just before training camp begins.

I'm kind of pissed. Not necessarily because I wasn't chosen for one of the positions, but because the application process changed midstream it seems.

Before everyone gets their panties in a wad about the pay ($400/week) and the commitment it required, I applied because that much money and covering an NFL team would beat the hell out of doing order intake for four hours every day making $8 bucks and hour.

Anyway, got my official rejection email yesterday. Seems that loads of laid off writers who had previously covered NFL teams got wind of the opportunity and sent resumes directly to CBSSports.com for consideration, meaning they didn't have to post their content on BleacherReport.com.

CBSSports, which made the hiring decisions, chose 16 of those writers for beat gigs, and 16 came from BleacherReport.

Now, I'm not begrudging those professional guys that are now gainfully employed. I'm quite happy for them. And I wish the folks who were hired from BleacherReport well.

I'm pissed because, as some on here speculated, this was an absolute boom in content for BleacherReport, who I'm sure reaped some reward from advertisers and the like for content that was published from the thousands who applied.

They can now brag about how many registered writers they have now and how much content they had published for their NFL section as a result of all the hard work put in by some of the hopefuls.

I knew that realistically, I had an outside shot at best at landing one of these gigs. It would have been a welcome surprise to have been selected to get me out of my temp job hell.


I would have gladly sent my resume and writing samples streaight to CBS had I known that was an option and NEVER published my work on BleacherReport.

I can say for sure that with the exception of the six articles I wrote during my application "process", they will never see another syllable from me.

Here is the email:


We’re happy to announce that the selection process for the CBSSports.com Pro Football Correspondent Network Powered by Bleacher Report is complete. The 32 Correspondents have been selected and notified and are busy preparing for the 2009-10 season.

First, a note of apology on the timeline of this process.

Assembling a network of 32 individuals, spread across the entire United States is obviously a large undertaking and in many respects, a logistical nightmare. From the outset, both CBSSports.com and Bleacher Report felt comfortable we would be able to complete the process by the June 30 deadline. However, as this date approached we realized we would need additional time to ensure all 32 positions could be filled with the best possible candidates available.

The end result is that the process was only just now finalized. Ideally, we could have alerted applicants who were no longer in consideration as the process progressed. However, in order to maximize the available talent in the applicant pool and with so many positions only very recently being finalized, we needed to wait until the entire process was complete before announcing the results.

Needless to say, we appreciate the patience shown by the community during this process, and please know we don’t take your time or hard work for granted. This has been a learning experience and we look forward to streamlining this undertaking going forward.

The initial reaction to the Correspondents Program was incredible, and exceeded our and CBSSports.com’s expectations. 2,800 writers applied, many thousands of articles were submitted, and our editorial team worked round-the-clock in order to review every article and assess every single writer.

The goal was for CBSSports.com to choose 32 correspondents, one for each NFL franchise. To help CBSSports.com get to that number Bleacher Report was to recommend 64 finalists — two for every team — for consideration.

This wasn’t an easy task since many teams had in our assessment a bench deeper than two talented writers, and in fact we ended up recommending more than 64 finalists to CBSSports.com. Additionally, as word spread about this new initiative, many veteran sports writers – most with past experience covering the NFL - submitted their resumes and writing samples directly to CBSSports.com. The backgrounds and credentials of these writers were such that it made sense for CBSSports.com to consider them in the mix as well.

Today we are pleased to announce 16 Bleacher Report finalists have been offered Correspondent positions. Unfortunately, two had to bow out for personal reasons, but 14 will begin work soon as official CBSSports.com Pro Football Correspondents. We look forward to following their progress and reporting over the course of the season.

It was our goal for all 32 Correspondents to come from Bleacher Report. In fact, the quality of the contributors was so exceptional that if it were possible we wish we could have found a way for all of the Bleacher Report finalists to have received offers. At the end of the day, with so many veteran journalists available and only 32 jobs to fill, CBSSports.com assembled their team by combining some of the best talent from Bleacher Report with experienced journalists from the sports media world.

The names of all 32 correspondents will be announced in a CBSSports.com press release timed around the start of training camps.

In addition to the correspondent opportunity with CBSSports.com, Bleacher Report is inviting many of the best writers to be Featured Columnists here at Bleacher Report. Look to see these exemplary writers soon on our NFL team pages.

To be sure all of the finalists who we recommended to CBSSports.com receive recognition for their achievements, Bleacher Report has decided to give a $500 award to any finalist who was recommended for a position that ended up going to an external writer. We wish we could do more, but sadly CBSSports.com isn’t in a position to offer everyone a job—and we can’t afford to buy everyone brand new sports cars. Award recipients will be contacted by Bleacher Report staff within the next three days.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t personally thank every applicant for his or her interest and contribution to the Correspondent Network. Bleacher Report exists only because of talented writers such as yourself and we will always work hard to find new and exciting ways to better serve and support you.

 

Well that was 140 characters. So if this were twitter, "out of space" would not have fit.

 

Mustang, you know what I mean. I don't think it will be on Twitter itself, but that's the kind of updates they want -- quick, punchy ones.

Blacktitleist, I'm interested in seeing who got the gigs. In reading the e-mail you posted (again) it never even dawned on me that 16 of the positions would've come straight from CBS Sports. Did you get a phone interview?

 

I didn't get a phone interview, but based on what I was reading, I thought I was one of about 5-7 folks who had the chops for my team.

And for the record, I wasn't a "fan" of the team I applied to cover (like the application process stated it wanted you to be). I just live a lot closer to the team I wanted to cover than to my favorite team, which I would not even attempt to cover.

Oh well. Back to order intake until preps get going.

 

Can't confirm, but I heard that a former Seattle P-I employee got the CBS gig for the Seahawks. Wondering how many others contacted CBS Sports and got the NFL correspondent jobs. Told there were at least 16 and maybe 18 of the 32 teams ended up that route.

Wondering if any other places, like Denver -- any former RMN guys -- got that gig or former newspaper guys in North Carolina that got the Panthers beat.

 

Pot deserves to be stirred. That's douchebaggery on the part of the writers who circumvented the process, and douchebaggery on the part of CBS Sports changing the rules in midstream. No wonder this business is swirling down the drain. Pretty dishonorable and disgusting.