Sleeping With The Enemy?

I understand the points here, but we have always let our writers appear pretty much anywhere from the get-go. I also remember some newspapers prohibiting it early on, or if allowing it, not allowing them to do anything that had any semblance of breaking news or giving out information that hadn't already appeared in the newspaper, which obviously could be a subjective thing.

Our point of view -- and obviously, we're not a newspaper and have different things -- is that anything that gets our writers exposed to a wider audience is a good thing. I don't know if that corrolates to struggling newspapers.

 

I would submit that a national Web site has more to gain from getting its writers "out there" to a potentially vast audience, more than a newspaper having its people wear hats of other media in a local market. The former, you're trying to become people's destination for content. The latter, you're already the destination but your people are helping other outlets piggyback on your edge and expertise.

I always felt, too, that since columnists trade in opinion in your pages, they were at risk of giving away their "product" even more so than your news gatherers (as long as they weren't scooping the paper on-air).

 

Michael Gee has no standing as an authority save what I can convince people of. So far, the convincing rate has been slow.
Michael Gee of the Herald had the authority of the brand. Letting other people use your brand for nothing isn't publicity, it's stupid. If newspapers want to run their own TV or radio operations, or sponsor a show, that's cool.
Eventually, what happened at the Herald was that many guys making TV and radio appearances moved into that field on a permanent basis. Good move on their part, but not really what marketing had in mind.

 

ESPN just robbed 18 newspapers. Furthermore, 18 sports editors were outed as idiots and 18 baseball beat writers just got a little more pissed off about their SE speaking on behalf of them.

 

Agree, and when I was a beat writer I appeared on a lot of radio and television spots. When I had time. And none of them were forced on me by some hair-brained scheme from the SE or ME seeing stars in their eyes when ESPN called. And NONE of them were on deadline.

Of those 18 papers that agreed to this, how many do you think consulted with their beat writers--the ones most familiar with the deadline pressure they're facing every night--and left it up to them? I have a queasy feeling in my stomach that the answer is less than one.

Props for ESPN for using their influence to pickpocket a dying industry. Well done.