The Washington Times partners with The Redskins

[Jake_Taylor]

This is interesting, to say the least.


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/27/washington-times-strikes-content-and-marketing-par/

 

[LongTimeListener]

Snyder didn't want to spend the money on an in-house operation anymore, I guess. Better to outsource the "house organ" function.

They'll get the EXCLUSIVE!!!! on how wonderful the Jay Gruden/Robert Griffin III collaboration is.

 

[Meatie Pie]

Desperate Times.

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

The most interesting aspect of this is, is that it's the Redskins, who are one of the least media friendly teams in professional sports.

I would love to know the financial details of the agreement, because it usually costs a ****ing fortune to get a toned-down version of this. This seems well beyond merely being a corporate partner.

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

I also can't help but wonder how much of this is a "**** you" to the WP.

 

[Walter Lippmann]

It's just sports. Let's save our outrage until the Times forms an official partnership with the RNC.

All I can say to this I'm sure the Redskins are fine with a business partner offering critical coverage.

John Solomon, the Times’ editor and vice president of content and business development, agreed. “The newspaper will retain its independent and probing coverage of the Redskins while adding new tools to prepare its readers for gameday, to move up their fantasy league chart and dive deeper into the football experience they love.”

 

[VJ]

Journalism would have been better off if they didn't re-boot the sports section after all

 

[YankeeFan]

It's just sports. Let's save our outrage until the Times forms an official partnership with the RNC.

Isn't this awesome!

An inevitable step, thanks to the toy department mentality.

I can't wait for all the folks who defended the LeBron first person essay to criticize this. And, someone will surely come along and say it doesn't count as a strike against journalism because the Washington Times isn't in the mainstream of journalism.

 

[JackReacher]

How many sports reporters are left at the Times? Can't be many. Two, including the terrible columnist?

 

[LongTimeListener]

I also can't help but wonder how much of this is a "**** you" to the WP.

And I'm sure the WP will respond by laying bare all of the franchise's troubles and paranoia, as it has done in years past. When Snyder picks a fight like that, he loses.

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

I also can't help but wonder how much of this is a "**** you" to the WP.

And I'm sure the WP will respond by laying bare all of the franchise's troubles and paranoia, as it has done in years past. When Snyder picks a fight like that, he loses.

Right. It's highly doubtful that the Times will get anything out of this relationship that would make anyone read its coverage over the WP.

 

[MisterCreosote]

I can't wait for all the folks who defended the LeBron first person essay to criticize this. And, someone will surely come along and say it doesn't count as a strike against journalism because the Washington Times isn't in the mainstream of journalism.

Full-fledged marketing partnerships with the subjects you're supposed to "cover" are not journalism.

Neither is tearing down the wall between advertising and editorial.

Neither is ghost-writing a first-person essay about a player's free-agent decision.

 

[Songbird]

What's Boswell got to say about all this?

 

[Ben_Hecht]

What does the Times have to do with journalism?

 

[Jake_Taylor]

How many sports reporters are left at the Times? Can't be many. Two, including the terrible columnist?

I think they just hired somebody to make it three full timers, plus Marc and two columnists who, I believe, are technically freelancers. Which one do you consider the terrible columnist?

This certainly hangs a cloud over all their coverage, but to be fair, ESPN 980 is owned by the Redskins and they aren't absolute sunshine pumpers. This probably won't be the paper to go to for coverage of the nickname controversy though.

 

[Mr. Sunshine]

As journalists go, the three full-time writers and the SE fall along the spectrum from good to great.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

What does the Times have to do with journalism?

It's too bad the front portion of the paper is a sad charade.

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

As journalists go, the three full-time writers and the SE fall along the spectrum from good to great.

I didn't realize the staff was that small. I know most of the people who have left in the past year have all wound up in pretty great places, and I'm not just talking about the former SE.

 

[Dr. Howard]

Jack Kent Cooke also liked the Times and hated the Post. At one time, the GM (I think it was Charley Casserly) was under orders not to talk to the Post. And I seem to remember Norv Turner getting pimped out as a 'columnist' for a Times section. The Redskins used to have a deal with the Examiner to do a weekend wraparound but did not use Examiner staff for media purposes.

 

[Fran Curci]

from the late 1990s: Los Angeles Times Publisher Kathryn M. Downing on Wednesday apologized for entering into an agreement to share the profit from a special issue of the Times Magazine with Staples Center, the new downtown sports arena that was the magazine's sole subject.

Downing said the lapse in judgment--and her failure to disclose it to readers and the paper's journalists--stemmed from her own "fundamental misunderstanding" of editorial principles in the newspaper industry.