The Athletic ... any thoughts ...

Nobody ever addresses the economics of diversity with regard to journalism's struggle to diversify: the pressure to hire minorities has increased within all industries over the last 20 years. The industries that pay better and have better futures are going to attract the bulk of the minority candidates. Because minorities are, by definition, a much scarcer commodity than those in the majority, there aren't going to be many of them left looking for jobs by the time the industries at the bottom of the pay/lifestyle ladder get their pick. I mean, throughout all of these layoffs we've seen at major places over the past year, how many minority writers have been let go and are now free agents? How much competent minority talent is really languishing in jobs where the Athletic would represent a step up?

 

Another hire in San Francisco. Doesn't anyone want to cover the lame duck Raiders in print?

 

BANG I get, the Chron though has a pretty strong union. Heck their science writer just took "early retirement". He is 98.

 

I suppose it's early compared to Sid Hartman, but that's about it.

This surprises me 0%. As much as I enjoyed watching HNIC when I lived in a part of the country where I could get CBC on cable, my experiences with a lot of "hockey people" convince me it would be easier to convince most of them of the existence of climate change than the value of CORSI.

I'm going to subscribe once I get around to it. It's a good concept that I hope works. On a much smaller level, Bob McGinn is doing a subscription site from semi-retirement for football people who like their punts hand-timed, I guess.

One detail I think I missed - who is bankrolling all this? Is it some foreign bzillionaire, like The National was?

 

Once worked at a newspaper where, in order to get and retain a minority journalist, the bosses blew through the generally accepted pay scale for that newsroom and especially that department's staff. Staffers already there -- who saw a pay stub lying around or learned of the starting pay via union documents -- didn't embrace the supply-and-demand rationale. They focused solely on management choosing to pay a newcomer with far less experience, assigned to a mid-level assignment, significantly more than established reporters shouldering the biggest beats. It made life miserable for a whole bunch of people, including the diversity hire who was resented not due to race but due to bigger paychecks for reasons unrelated to quality/quantity of work. A solid staff soon had people leaving over what they felt was a compensation system they couldn't trust, and the diversity hire left too from feeling alienated.

This was a long time ago. Now everyone who no longer works at that paper is glad that they left, so maybe that's a happy ending.

 

It shouldn't matter whether the most qualified candidate is male, woman, black, white, pink, purple. You hire the person you feel will do the job best. Period. Pretty simple concept.

 

Their desktop site has recently changed to a more NY Times-y/Wapo look. I appreciate that.

 

Paid $30 for a year when they were having a promotional sale. Not sure I'd have done it otherwise but I like the work. The football "national names" are mediocre but I think the basketball ones are going to be really good. And football content has been great.

 

That's Peter Gammons, by the way.

 

I see King douchebag Dejean Kovacevic is taking the The Athletic coming to Pittsburgh well.