SMG: Peter Kerasotis

[Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!]

http://www.sportsmediaguide.com/20071023-PeterKerasotis.asp

Another quality interview

The guy is frank about his paper's budget cuts and what he thinks about them.


Love. Love. SMG

 

[ondeadline]

Nice guy I've had the pleasure of meeting. But I don't think any management -- much less the crazy management at Florida Today -- is going to like all the criticism of staffing decisions.

 

[hondo]

Pete's as class an act as there is in the state. He's better than his paper.

 

[WaylonJennings]

Just another whiner bitching about how much money he makes [/Fo' Real]

 

[andyouare?]

When I tell them my Christmas bonus is a $25 gift certificate at a local grocery store they don't know whether to laugh or cry for me.

GANNETT!!! I got the same "bonus" every year at my Gannett paper. The gift certificate was also good at Dillards (deparment store) and a local grocery story that has bars on its windows because it's in such a bad neighborhood.

I've mentioned this before, but I left the biz and I'm working in public relations. My x-mas bonus last year? Two weeks salary.

In regards to his interview, not staffing the FSU-Alabama game!!! They're less than three hours from Jacksonville. That's a joke.

 

[Joe Williams]

Another instance of the individuals being better than the paper.

 

[Jeremy Goodwin]

I've never read him, but liked both excerpts at the start and finish of the interview. There is some great stuff in that interview:

Q. Are your editors pushing for more local coverage?

A. That's the impression I get. The budget is being cut. I'm not to travel as much this year to NFL and college games. This Saturday will be the first Florida State-Miami game I won't be sent to as a columnist. Which I disagree with.

Q. How do you maintain an authoritative voice without going to the games?

A. That's what readers are wondering. We had an AP story on Florida State-Alabama. Readers complained. Our editor's response was that AP coverage was perfectly acceptable for a game 2 1/2 hours away. I disagree. I think we're better than that.

Q. Is it strictly a budget issue?

A. They claim it's budgetary. I think it's a lack of attention to those areas. You don't let an AP story appear in your paper from a Florida State-Alabama game in your state. That goes beyond budget.

Q. USF is a big story - how will you cover it?

A. I went for the USF-UCF game. I've gotten no indication we should turn our attention to USF. The only thing you hear is that times are changing and we're not going to do as much as in the past. If we're not covering the traditional schools as much, then I don't know what's going to happen with South Florida. I certainly have voiced my opinion.

I wrote a column last week comparing USF and UCF to the rise of Florida State and Miami twenty years ago. It was buried on the bottom of the sports section beneath a prep swimming advance. I have to believe there's more interest in a rivalry like USF-UCF, with a lot of alumni here, than a prep swimming advance.

Then the game column appeared on 1-A. So they're still sorting out what's important and what's not as editors.

Q. Are the job pressures invisible to the readers?

A. I think so. They say 'you have such a great job'. It is good, but the deadline pressures and competitive pressures are enormous. The thing about the Internet now is that it magnifies every little mistake. I wrote a column about the Dolphins today that mentioned a 1985 game and had it in the wrong stadium - and I got hammered. I had the Dolphins playing the Bears at Soldiers Field instead of the Orange Bowl and people think you're a dolt. If you had a job where every day your picture was put on the quantity and quality of work you do - not only for the community, for the whole world - you would understand pressure. It doesn't matter if you have a headache or home problems or whatever it is that divides your attention. My father died this year and I'm doing a lot for my mother who is still grieving. We have lives away from our work. But if you have one off day everybody can see it and respond to it. How would they like it if every day their picture was on everything they did?

I have a college degree, I've won APSE awards and I'm at the top of my profession, but when I tell people what I make - friends I've know for years - they're absolutely dumbfounded. They cannot believe it. When I tell them my Christmas bonus is a $25 gift certificate at a local grocery store they don't know whether to laugh or cry for me.

 

[Lyman_Bostock]

I thought it was an excellent interview, but he also seems to have more than a touch of hubris, at least as far as complaining about how his column is played.

 

[Joe Williams]

That and the "I've won APSE awards and I'm at the top of my profession" stuff. The top? Really?

Yeah, touch of hubris.

 

[Lyman_Bostock]

That and the "I've won APSE awards and I'm at the top of my profession" stuff. The top? Really?

Yeah, touch of hubris.

I fully understand the lure of being a big fish in a small pond. I think blooming where you are planted is a wonderful thing.

At the same time, I'm not sure working at Florida Today equates to being at the top of your profession.

 

[andyouare?]

That and the "I've won APSE awards and I'm at the top of my profession" stuff. The top? Really?

Yeah, touch of hubris.

I fully understand the lure of being a big fish in a small pond. I think blooming where you are planted is a wonderful thing.

At the same time, I'm not sure working at Florida Today equates to being at the top of your profession.

I believe, though I'm not sure, his column runs in the other Florida Gannett papers Fort Myers and Panama City?, which would push his numbers closer to 200-250K.

 

[friend of a friend]

His column doesn't run in Fort Myers. Deron Snyder is their columnist.

 

[andyouare?]

His column doesn't run in Fort Myers. Deron Snyder is their columnist.

Awesome! I've got to pick up a copy.

 

[WaylonJennings]

That and the "I've won APSE awards and I'm at the top of my profession" stuff. The top? Really?

Yeah, touch of hubris.

I didn't so much mind that. I mean, when you look at how tough it is to even get to where he is, it's probably 1/10 of 1 percent of us, if that, plus add in the APSEs ... yeah, I think it's relatively valid. And he was trying to make a point about how ****ty the quality of life components of our job are. What if someone told a lawyer that they had to be in the top 1/10 of 1 percent of their profession to rake in a cool $50-60K a year? They'd choke on their caviar.

 

[Dan Rydell]

Favorite restaurant (home): Carrabba's Italian Grille, Merritt Island "Italian the way Italian ought to be - my wife and I went to Italy and kept saying 'this isn't as good as Carrabba's'"

Gotta wonder about that observation.

Reminds me of someone I worked with who went to Spain for two weeks, then came back bitching about it because "Everyone spoke Spanish there."

 

[Lyman_Bostock]

Favorite restaurant (home): Carrabba's Italian Grille, Merritt Island "Italian the way Italian ought to be - my wife and I went to Italy and kept saying 'this isn't as good as Carrabba's'"

Gotta wonder about that observation.

Reminds me of someone I worked with who went to Spain for two weeks, then came back bitching about it because "Everyone spoke Spanish there."

Carrabba's is pretty darned good. But the "average" Italian restaurant we patronized in Bellagio (the one in Italy, not the one in Vegas) was better than that.

 

[awriter]

When I tell them my Christmas bonus is a $25 gift certificate at a local grocery store they don't know whether to laugh or cry for me.

GANNETT!!! I got the same "bonus" every year at my Gannett paper. The gift certificate was also good at Dillards (deparment store) and a local grocery story that has bars on its windows because it's in such a bad neighborhood.

I've mentioned this before, but I left the biz and I'm working in public relations. My x-mas bonus last year? Two weeks salary.

In regards to his interview, not staffing the FSU-Alabama game!!! They're less than three hours from Jacksonville. That's a joke.

I worked at a Gannett paper, and one year the Christmas bonus was a gift certificate ... for a free psychiatric counseling session!

 

[Twoback]

When I tell them my Christmas bonus is a $25 gift certificate at a local grocery store they don't know whether to laugh or cry for me.

GANNETT!!! I got the same "bonus" every year at my Gannett paper. The gift certificate was also good at Dillards (deparment store) and a local grocery story that has bars on its windows because it's in such a bad neighborhood.

I've mentioned this before, but I left the biz and I'm working in public relations. My x-mas bonus last year? Two weeks salary.

In regards to his interview, not staffing the FSU-Alabama game!!! They're less than three hours from Jacksonville. That's a joke.

Hey, when I worked for Gannett, I go no Christmas bonus at all. So you guys are way ahead of me.

 

[Matt1735]

Hey, when I worked for Gannett, I go no Christmas bonus at all. So you guys are way ahead of me.

+1
My Christmas bonus the cold cut tray they bought for those of us working on Christmas Day. The one upside was the holiday pay -- the equivalent of triple-time for most of the day.

 

[silentbob]

Am I reading this correctly?

"If you had a job where every day your picture was put on the quantity and quality of work you do - not only for the community, for the whole world - you would understand pressure. It doesn't matter if you have a headache or home problems or whatever it is that divides your attention."

Wow.

I'm hoping Peter read that quote and grimaced. Please tell me did. I'm sure his co-workers got a kick out of it.

Man. What ... an .... ego.

Seriously, what makes this such a great interview?

First, he goes out of his way to show everyone that he's a big fish in a small pond. He's won national awards. He's just as good as the "metro" guys. He competed against the big names out in LA. He gets info the beat guys don't get from Bruce Bochy and Tim Wakefield!

Then he bashes management basically because -- let's be honest -- they buried his column.