1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

The downfall of CBS Sports

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by cranberry, Feb 3, 2016.

  1. JC

    JC Well-Known Member

    Staples?
     
  2. Elliotte Friedman

    Elliotte Friedman Moderator Staff Member

    Ah I see...

    We're arguing two different things. I was saying that anyone who believes it doesn't matter who breaks the stories is wrong, because I can tell you from experience that it absolutely does.

    But, to come to your point about monetizing it, I do agree that media organizations struggle with that...which is one of the reasons Twitter's stock hasn't taken off. My previous workplace tried it with certain hashtags, didn't work. Now, there are creative things you can do. Our place is more aggressive now with using those followers to tweet out website links, and create video that can be sent out too. That's the way you can do it.
     
  3. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    Is that showing promise? I've lost touch on all the latest ways to turn eyeballs into dollars. Maybe it is and it's the answer.

    But the whole issue and what CBS has done, that's at heart the reason I (and I'm sure plenty of others) got out -- I couldn't see how the thing was going to make business sense.
     
  4. Elliotte Friedman

    Elliotte Friedman Moderator Staff Member

    LTL, I will have to ask our guys for the numbers, because I don't usually poke my nose into that business.

    But, I do know how bosses think. I have about 200,000 Twitter followers. They ask me to send out a link, and you can get a decent number out of that. Imagine Schefter, who is at 4.5M. Just by sending out links and saying, "Tune to ESPN for this next segment," you can gain eyeballs.
     
  5. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    Part of the problem is the guys with the best followings are choosing to break the news on Twitter, which doesn't pay them a dime.
     
  6. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    I understand that bosses care that experienced, beat reporters break news. But if they are hiring 20-somethings to slap together what comes their way, they don't care that they are 10 seconds or 10 minutes behind. They don't expect those folks to break news.

    Often, though, the content miners are much better (or less concerned with accuracy) at writing headlines that gain clicks, so they will get many more eyeballs on some weak rewrite of someone else's content than the actual breaking story gets.
     
  7. JohnHammond

    JohnHammond Well-Known Member

    Shouldn't reporters on the front lines pay more attention to the business side? If you think breaking news matters, then so does the bottom line.
     
    FileNotFound likes this.
  8. Elliotte Friedman

    Elliotte Friedman Moderator Staff Member

    In reply to the posts from cranberry and hammond:

    I think we do. Although, I should speak for myself as opposed to anyone else. Let me go in-depth here:

    After last year's NHL Trade Deadline, one of my bosses came up to me (he's a TV boss) and said, "We were really behind there. (The competition) was beating us on broken trades. But you did a great job in catching up later in the day." So, there's that. Later in the season, I got word Edmonton was hosting a potential GM candidate. It was a big story. Worried about getting beat, I got it out on Twitter. The web guy called, upset. He wanted it on the website first.

    I asked for a meeting, wanting to know what matters more here. There was no clear answer. As a network, we are building our credibility. In Canada, when it comes to hockey, breaking news matters. Too much for my own stress levels, but it does matter. You risk losing stories if you wait for the web, and it absolutely SUCKS when you wait for something to be published only to see it tweeted out elsewhere first.

    So I made a deal.

    Big breaking news goes out on Twitter first. But if I knew it had space, I would give it to web. I've been able to do this a couple of times, and they are appreciative. It's a long way of answering your question, but it's my way of saying, yes, I understand the business and the responsibility to my company. But, if your company values being first (and I don't care what anyone says, they do) they know it's not possible to wait all the time.
     
  9. Lugnuts

    Lugnuts Well-Known Member

    I don't find it depressing... more like unsettling because of the rapid change. It seems part of the evolutionary process, though.

    To understand how the process is evolving, look at your own habits.

    For example: I follow pro tennis. Twitter is extremely inefficient for me, for various reasons.

    A friend texted me yesterday that Federer was having surgery for an injury suffered the day AFTER losing to Djokovic in the Australian Open semis.

    That's crazy. Immediately I thought:

    1. Did he really suffer it then, or did he suffer it DURING the match and just not want to say anything?
    2. If he did suffer it 1 day after, why was he practicing 1 day after a major tournament that had to have taken a toll on his body? Not plausible.
    3. Did he suffer it playing tennis at all? Or was it tripping or horseplay with his kids?
    4. Is this (finally) the beginning of the end of his career?

    So I really wanted to know WHAT HAPPENED. Went to Google news search. Nada. Just articles written from Federer's Facebook post.

    Went to Jon Wertheim's Twitter feed. Wertheim covers tennis for SI and Tennis Channel and wrote a book on Fed. Figured he would know if anyone would.

    Wertheim is spread so freaking thin, I had to wade thru a bunch of promotional tweets about his latest book to find his Tweet on Fed, which only reported the fact of the injury.

    24 hours later, I'm still looking for information.

    The need for information is there.
    The want is there.
    How is the consumer going to get it?
    How is the consumer going to wade through the crap and the noise to get it?
    The ones who can figure out (a) how to deliver the content and (b) how to do it efficiently will make the money. I guarantee that.

    WriteThinking or someone pointed out that he'd not visited CBS for awhile. I didn't even realize it-- but me either. Could be about 2 years since I've given them a click.

    That tells you that the aggregation route maybe lucrative in the short term but incredibly short-sighted and eventually self-defeating.

    There are a million aggregators out there. Why would I go to CBS ?

    Content IS king and will always be. Information is king.
     
  10. wicked

    wicked Well-Known Member

    Lugnuts, I respect your opinion, but here's why the whole thing troubles me.

    I had that same conversation with someone. Nearly 10 years ago.

    That conversation happened 10 years after we started seeing newspaper websites.

    We still haven't found out how to monetize our web product. I'm assuming lots of very, very smart people have been trying to figure it out. Their livelihoods, our livelihoods, depend on it.

    Ten years ago, we were told video was going to be the salvation. My paper at the time, a good yet small one, was early on that train. Daily newscasts. Reports filled with good interviews and back stopped with some B-roll. What's that helped? I'm not saying video isn't a worthwhile component on many projects, but show me the money.

    Maybe a new generation of sales people and creative journalists, a generation that grew up expecting almost everything on the Internet to be free, will be able to solve the issue. I'm not holding my breath.

    Yeah, content is king, but no one is paying tribute to the throne.
     
    Lugnuts and LongTimeListener like this.
  11. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    I understand the dilemma and I'm not sure there's a good answer. But the question boils down to what value is there to the company that's paying your check if you break news on Twitter (benefiting Twitter advertisers) under your own handle without a link driving users back to more detailed information/reporting on the company site with company advertisers? Seems negligible.

    Heyman, for example, broke all sorts of news on Twitter but his stuff on CBS was never very compelling. He's an excellent reporter but not a particularly good writer. Buster Olney and Ken Rosenthal, on the other hand, are guys who seem to create a good balance. Their well-reported columns are always worth reading and they're closely associated with their company brands.

    Also, if Heyman had decided to break news only on CBS would his sources have begun to ignore him? If I'm say, Scott Boras, am I going to feed him information to break on CBS or is my goal to get it out quickly on Twitter?
     
  12. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    I have no idea how all this works in the digital age of journalism, but if Olney gets a scoop that A-Rod is announcing his retirement on Sunday, could he bang out 5-6 column inches on his phone, send that to the .com, they fire back a link to post to, he tweets the link, editor at the .com creates the page for people to hit.

    Twitter feed handled and .com get s a bezillion hits.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page