The Athletic keeps growing .......

[MNgremlin]

Serious question. Is The Athletic sticking with basic great coverage of the teams (like newspapers back in the day) and letting TV have video and radio have podcasts? Or is The Athletic copying newspapers and playing the ridiculous "make our reporters do the work of three people and shoot and edit video and do podcasts and facebook broadcasts" all the time?

I haven't seen much for podcasts/videos, at least in my closest market. A couple of the guys still do the podcasts they had before The Athletic, but that's about it.

 

[BaseballGuy1]

I'm interested to see what markets they go in next, especially for baseball since they're close to covering every team.

 

[boundforboston]

I'm interested to see what markets they go in next, especially for baseball since they're close to covering every team.

Kansas City will be next, perhaps sometime this week.

 

[lcjjdnh]

Kansas City will be next, perhaps sometime this week.

 

[BaseballGuy1]

I was surprised Rustin Dodd left the KC Star. Makes me curious what these guys are getting paid because it has to at least be as much if not more than they're making at these major papers.

 

[Alma]

Serious question. Is The Athletic sticking with basic great coverage of the teams (like newspapers back in the day) and letting TV have video and radio have podcasts? Or is The Athletic copying newspapers and playing the ridiculous "make our reporters do the work of three people and shoot and edit video and do podcasts and facebook broadcasts" all the time?

We’ll learn more in the next couple years. It’s always pure journalism out of the gate.

 

[John B. Foster]

 

[Jake_Taylor]

KC is in the midst of a soft launch, but I don't know how aggressively its looking to expand past Royals coverage just yet. I've heard the Star isn't particularly worried about losing more people in the immediate future.

On the surface, DC seems like a market they'd want, but there must be a reason it wasn't a priority.

 

[Waldo9939]

Again I just have to ask, where are the front-line editors? I saw someone say that small mistakes can add up in the end. Why not make an effort to try to hire some of them in this round as well?

 

[LongTimeListener]

Again I just have to ask, where are the front-line editors? I saw someone say that small mistakes can add up in the end. Why not make an effort to try to hire some of them in this round as well?

I don't know who said that, but it's wrong. There isn't value -- I'm talking subscribers or revenue -- in making sure everything is spelled right and punctuated properly. The online world doesn't care about that. If there's a fact error, you attach a correction right there in real time.

There was a column awhile back from a guy trying to determine the value of copy editing. He couldn't find any. The only impact it had was negative because it slowed down the posting.

 

[wicked]

Two groups of people care about typos:

1. The cranks who leave comments on stories. That’s probably 0.1 percent of our readership.

2. Us.

It’s sad, but the truth.

 

[playthrough]

I don't know who said that, but it's wrong. There isn't value -- I'm talking subscribers or revenue -- in making sure everything is spelled right and punctuated properly. The online world doesn't care about that. If there's a fact error, you attach a correction right there in real time.

There was a column awhile back from a guy trying to determine the value of copy editing. He couldn't find any. The only impact it had was negative because it slowed down the posting.

I'm guilty of posting that. I know that Joe Fan doesn't care, but it bugs the heck out of me. And not saying that botching "you're/your" is potentially the downfall of the entire enterprise, but it shows a form of carelessness and/or lack of editing help that can make you wonder if there might something wrong of greater significance somewhere. I realize that 0.1 percent of the readership might think that way, but that's still 0.1 percent too much.

Now climbing off my journalistic high horse. Can't stay on long anymore because he only has three legs after the last round of cutbacks.

 

[lcjjdnh]

I don't know who said that, but it's wrong. There isn't value -- I'm talking subscribers or revenue -- in making sure everything is spelled right and punctuated properly. The online world doesn't care about that. If there's a fact error, you attach a correction right there in real time.

There was a column awhile back from a guy trying to determine the value of copy editing. He couldn't find any. The only impact it had was negative because it slowed down the posting.

I’m of the everyone-makes-mistakes view so I don’t need care too much about typos and the like. But my impression after a few weeks is that they could use more editors to help with bigger picture issues. Typos bother me way less than poorly organized or overly lengthy stories.

 

[playthrough]

I’m of the everyone-makes-mistakes view so I don’t need care too much about typos and the like. But my impression after a few weeks is that they could use more editors to help with bigger picture issues. Typos bother me way less than poorly organized or overly lengthy stories.

I was thinking that while reading a Seth Davis piece today that had a loooooong bulleted section, which included such deep insider nuggets like "everyone's sleeping on Gonzaga again." I think there should be a limit on the riffs in those things, but that would require an editor with some chops.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Typos bother me way less than poorly organized or overly lengthy stories.

I'm with you there and I think it plagues The Athletic more than other outlets. But I think that observation is also limited to people with some connection or heightened interest in the business. It might hurt at award time. To the paying customer, though, they just stop reading halfway through and check back tomorrow on what the same guy wrote.

 

[LongTimeListener]

I think there should be a limit on the riffs in those things, but that would require an editor with some chops.

Simmons and Klosterman built empires on those riffs.

 

[Ice9]

I was thinking that while reading a Seth Davis piece today that had a loooooong bulleted section, which included such deep insider nuggets like "everyone's sleeping on Gonzaga again." I think there should be a limit on the riffs in those things, but that would require an editor with some chops.

Really? Everyone's sleeping on the second-weekend NCAA tourney perennials that went to the national final last year? I want what Seth's smoking.

 

[Southwinds]

Two groups of people care about typos:

1. The cranks who leave comments on stories. That’s probably 0.1 percent of our readership.

2. Us.

It’s sad, but the truth.

That's because the vast majority of the population also cannot spell or write properly and thus doesn't notice a mistake.

Also sad, but also the truth.

 

[boundforboston]

KC is in the midst of a soft launch, but I don't know how aggressively its looking to expand past Royals coverage just yet. I've heard the Star isn't particularly worried about losing more people in the immediate future.

On the surface, DC seems like a market they'd want, but there must be a reason it wasn't a priority.

I imagine they’d like to get a Chiefs beat writer and have the KC finished, especially since the Chiefs are a huge traffic driver.

 

[wicked]

Did I miss something, or is there no Boston operation?