Pissing match: Post-Dispatch vs. The Athletic

Happened upon this yesterday, with the P-D sports editor lobbing a salvo about how much they covered the Cardinals in spring training vs. The Athletic.

There are various off-shoots from this thread, including the SE following up with an "I'm not disparaging the work of others" bullshit walk-back, entrances by Mark Saxon, The Athletic writer for the Cardinals, the SE saying the organization hates Saxon, Saxon countering that it's evidence the P-D only runs Cardinals-approved content, etc.



Any thoughts on this? When I was in the business, I always liked when we went on the offensive and stopped being punching bags for critics.

But this feels a little desperate, for the P-D SE to spend that much time counting up content for both outlets for the last two months, then the passive-aggressive "not disparaging others" follow-up. In light of recent Lee and P-D layoffs, who is the SE trying to convince about them doing a better and more complete job - readers or corporate bosses?

 

Is this his Why I Didn't Go To Work For The Athletic article?

 

Any sports editor that brags about quantity of content simply doesn't get it -- especially when he includes photos and videos in his tabulation. The Athletic's pitch to subscribers is that it is the place to go for deliberate, intelligent, thoughtfully curated, in-depth sports writing. In the early going, it specifically had "no videos" as part of its marketing message.

 

Its a scoreboard. His numbers are probably juiced. But theres nothing wrong with giving people a reason to spend their digital sub money at his place. What possible harm could come?

 

People like to criticize The Athletic for their occasional fanboy hires, but has anyone here actually read the P-D’s Cardinals coverage?

To call it homerish is an insult to homers everywhere.

 

Do you even have to buy a digital sub to the P-D? I read their stuff online fairly regularly, and have never had to do anything beyond answer a random survey question to get access.

I will second what Regan said, too. Often times, it reads as if they let the Cardinals front office staffers edit their stuff before posting it.

I did laugh, though, when Goold jumped in and asked Saxon if he wants to take this discussion private and do it in person. Who decided to take public in the first place, paper tough guy?

 

Tough dual-sided talk from a paper that’s probably gonna lay off more employees sooner or later. Typical print media. Demanding unconditional loyalty but offering none in return and then getting salty when those “disloyal” defectors put out a better product elsewhere

 

Why shouldn’t they bleed out local papers? The papers’ only response to this quip so far, least from what I have seen, is to throw their hands in their air and go “Hey, that’s not nice!” like they’re being bullied at school or something. Weak

 

I will say, The Athletic doesn't post consistent content. The Brewers writer hasn't written a story since opening day. Give me a break. What a joke.

 

That's on the Brewers writer then, and not the fault of the platform.