Simmons and Klosterman on death of newspapers ...

Random thoughts, because this is a thread full of them:

1) Re Simmons: I never got him. Never liked the length, and often not particularly interested in the subject matter. But let it be noted -- my son, who just turned 21, thinks Simmons is the bomb or the shit or whatever. And he's got a sportsfan background not remotely close Simmons'. I don't get it. But he likes what he likes.

2) The whole "not moving up" issue by young people either already at big papers or hoping to get there was absolutely a factor in motivation, or lack thereof.

I worked at one of the biggest. The high school writers were well-paid, great benefits -- yeah, it was a while ago -- at one of the best papers in the country. But many of them were frustrated all the time, because nobody was going to leave that paper when it was that place, and nobody did. So they had a choice: Suck it up and get paid well and great benefits and the prestige of working at that paper -- or move down or sideways and take a bigger beat at somewhere not nearly as "great."

And it was a hell of a dilemma and constant.

3) Listening to these guys talk about saving the industry I love doesn't interest me too much. Not a lot of real expertise there, unless they had other jobs I'm not aware of.

4) Unions ruined nothing from my vantage point, certainly not editorial unions and probably not any of them. When I worked as sports editor at a midsized in Florida -- "They pay you in sunshine" -- I could pay nothing to anybody, and it resulted in not being able to keep good people or having frustrated good people.

Hey, I told you they were random thoughts.

 

Couple things. First of all, people are making six figures at places like the Chicago Tribune and the Boston Globe. Shouldn't they be? It's the top of our profession.

Second, I get what you're saying about the owners and operators and such, but I just have grown tired of the "blame the workers" mentality. Unions ruining newspapers? Please.

 

But hasn't that dilemma always been there?

Didn't Grantland Rice take a pay cut to leave Nashville for the NY Evening Mail? Hasn't every writer had the old guard standing in their way to whatever beat they want to cover?

 

I'm not a big fan of newspaper unions personally, but the idea that they had anything to do with industry's decline is ludicrous. Non-union papers are struggling, too. And I didn't notice any real difference in work ethic on the union and non-union staffs. In fact, the one with the most slackers was non-union.

 

Yeah, but that's assuming the Evening Mail is hiring. They've had a freeze since 1927.

 

If they were discussing the decline of newspapers, why in the world were they focusing on which sportswriters got the spotlight and which got frustrated? Let's not kid ourselves. All of us here share common criteria for our sections and like to debate who's better or who did it right within those standards. But our readers don't think about whether they'll take the paper based on whether they like the cut of that young whippersnapper's jib.

Marmaduke can win and lose subscribers. Sudoku? Hell yeah. But the age and quality of the sportswriters isn't going to make one-tenth of one percent of difference on circulation. (Really, this extends to all reporters, sports or otherwise.)

Did Simmons and Klosterman get around to discussing the disappearance of classified ads, which is only reasons No. 1 through 10 that our industry is falling apart?

 

I enjoy Chuck Klosterman. In enjoy his intellect. I enjoy his phrasing. His ability to move a sentence. To work a paragraph around, in and out of anecdotes and riffs.
I abhor Chuck Klosterman when he steps onto a soap box and tells me how a newspaper should and shouldn't be run. In essence, everyone of his arguments -- and there have been several published -- are pinned to another failed model: news magazines.
Spare me the false conclusions.

 

Sure, to some extent. But where I worked, and managed people, it was a big factor in keeping everybody happy, and I guess one difference was, nobody really wanted to leave the "known" of working for a Class A paper and company -- as it was then -- to the "unknown" of maybe a place that wasn't so much like that. But they didn't want to stay put in the jobs they had, either. So it was a personal stalemate that led to some frustrated folks.

 

The problem with Simmons has nothing to do with Communism but everything to do with Communionism.

During Simmons' First Communion he chewed the body of Christ even though he was warned by the Nuns not to do so. Ever since then he's been cursed. God cursed him by giving him the thing he wished for most - a gig as a columnist at the biggest sports media outlet in the land. He's been unhappy ever since and is held in there by a golden cage. See how little Billy sings melancholy songs in his golden cage. Poor cursed Billy.

That will teach him to listen to the Nuns.

 

I know what you're saying SF. But I can't help but think the younger ones have unrealistic expectations.

I mean Simmons is whining about not getting a major beat until he's 35. What happened to paying your dues? What happened to patience?

 

I can't believe a thread about Bill Simmons is already on page 3.

 

High salaries??? That's a joke. I'm sorry, but $50K at a major metro newspaper is not a "high salary."