The Economics of the Big-Time Columnist

Could be.

 

The Startlegram could hire a helluva lot more than three reporters on Galloway's coin.

 

Yes, I know.

 

To support Dave Kindred's point, there was an article to back up the example of Mike Royko, who said he would take 100,000 readers with him when he changed papers. In fact, statistics were presented in either the article or letter to the editor in a succeeding issue saying that was not the case. I believe the article was in the Columbia Journalism Review, but I'm not positive.

That said, I think having opinion or analysis in columns will be more important in the future for newspapers. The success of alt weekly papers would provide proof of that.

 

Ridiculous. Sports are typically the most meritocratic of industries because the public actually does discern quality in the product. The players in the baseball union were so scared that no major leaguer crossed the imaginary picket line to play in replacement games.

I wish the same could be said for journalism but many of the best writers leave for the business so they can earn a decent paycheck. Publishers hire younger, cheaper replacements and laugh all the way to the bank.

 

The union was not mortified. Major League Baseball is not the NFL. The union has stuck together, unlike the NFL. Attendance suffered in 1995, so it is ridiculous to say that people would have come out and pay major league prices to watch what is obviously not major league baseball. Other than Marge Schott, no owner voted to use scabs. Had the major league owners done that, ticket holders would have sued for refunds and cities would have take legal action where there were agreements for city-owned properties.

 

Actually, when New Times bought out Village Voice Media, the first thing they did at the Village Voice was stress that opinion would be reduced in favor of news:

In a phone conversation, Mr. Lacey said that all the changes are designed to create space for more magazine-style reported pieces. Commentary, at least as currently practiced in The Village Voice, has no place in the New Times regime.

http://www.observer.com/20060424/20060424_Gabriel_Sherman_media_offtherecord.asp

Alt-weeklies are suffering, too. Their classifieds sections have shrunk just as badly as the dailies'. Their readership is aging, just like ours. Opinion writing has not proved to be a solution for them, either.

 

to prove my point go watch spring training of any major league team. they train with their top 15 or 20 minor leaguers. do you think the average fan knows the difference between the major leaguer and the triple A guy? of course not - the coaches barely know. so if you suit up a team of triple A players in major league uniforms, and they're playing another team of triple A players in major league uniforms, do you think the average fan will know he's watching triple A baseball? no way. quality is relative - it's not an absolute.

people go to baseball games because it's a great game. doesn't matter who is playing it. and if the strike had continued in 95 people would have come to the ballparks - eventually. might have taken some time - but eventually the would have come. because they love baseball, and in the summer, when you can sit outside in shorts and a tee-shirt and drink beer and watch it, doesn't matter if it's triple A players or so-called major leaguers.

the owners would have broken the union - no question - if the owners' lawyers hadn't clumsily stumbled over the labor laws - costing them a decision in a federal court.

 

I've watched more than a hundred spring training games and I know darn well when the best players aren't playing as do most astute fans. If you're not able to make those distinctions, that's on you. The replacement player strategy (that the owners aborted) was dumb and desperate. Idiots thought that MLB players would cave like NFL players and that just wasn't the case. There's not a chance people would have paid big-league prices to watch minor-league games.

 

"big-league prices" is a red herring.

who said anything about ticket prices?

what i said was that fans would have come back.

 

It took fans a long time to come back after the real players came back, so there's no basis to suggest that fans would have come back to see an inferior product. Again, if you can't tell the difference between the best and a bunch of non prospects (as you'll recall, top prospects didn't cross), it's on you.

 

then why do MLB teams make so many bad draft choices? because even they can't tell the difference. it's a very fine line usually. hey, i'm not talking about all-stars and hall of famers - of course you know a nolan ryan when you see one. but if you saw david eckstein in camp, before he made it big, how would you know? he looked like a 'minor leaguer'. wade boggs was stuck in the minors for years - nobody knew he was a major leaguer. when the kansas city royals play the tampa bay devil rays you've got a matchup of losers, supposedly major leaguers. they charge major league prices to see that. is there a perceptable difference between watching that matchup and the yankees-red sox? not really. just like there's no perceptable difference between watching the royals-devil rays and watching their top triple A teams play each other.