Pissing match: Post-Dispatch vs. The Athletic

So I guess “Frank Sinatra has a Cold” sucked

 

Oh, Mr. Talese wrote that in an evening, did he?

 

I subscribed to the Athletic, in large part to read about my hometown NFL team, the Broncos. I currently live a long away from Denver. The Athletic hired Nicki Jhabvalata away from the Post to cover the team. And she is good.

But the Post still has one full-time and one mostly full-time guy covering the Broncos. The Post still produces a lot more material about the Broncos than the Athletic. I sometimes find it frustrating that when I cehck ina t the Athletic I don't know how much content I will see.

I pay eight bucks for the Post on Kindle and five dollars for the Athletic. And with the Post I get to read what remains of their local coverage.

I wonder if the same thing is not true in St. Louis. The Athletic has some really good staffers but the P-D offers a lot more comprehensive coverage.

 

They push the "everything is unique" thing because they have to in order to drive subs, but to me the appeal is, no matter what team you want to read about, they probably have a pretty good beat writers on them, and you also get to read local coverage from other markets as well as national stuff and the site is easy to read and doesn't have popup ads. It's not very much money, to me it's worth the subscription price for the amount of content you get.

 

The appeal of The Athletic, at least to me, is that I pay for one subscription, and I get some pretty cool, insightful content about programs and teams I may not follow on a day-to-day basis, but still want to know more about if they had a big day (sprung an upset on a college football Saturday, have some front-office turmoil, etc.). I love getting those stories from people who are really well connected and don't just swoop in when there's a big story.

However, I've been incredibly disappointed in The Athletic when it comes to covering the teams that I do follow on a day-to-day basis. It is no replacement whatsoever for the quantity of content I get from local beat writers, and as a result, I've kept the subscriptions I've had to those outlets. I closely follow a major college football team, and to get just one story the night of/morning after a game pales in comparison to the gamer, column, notes, sidebar treatment the daily newspaper does. The college basketball team had a huge win in November ... and there was NOTHING on The Athletic about it, even though the beat writer was at the game. My favorite baseball team was in the playoffs, and there was not daily coverage.

I don't mind paying $40/year or whatever it is I paid for The Athletic this year. But any more than that (and they have to raise the price at some point, right?), I'm not sure it's worth it.

 

This is the “insider” content I was seeking from Damian Lillard’s big night, but I didn’t get it from The Athletic.

Worth noting that some folks on this board said it was unrealistic for a reporter to get this kind of behind the scenes story the morning after Westbrook went off for 20-20-21.

Inside the assassin's mindset — and trash talk — of Damian Lillard’s matchup against Russell Westbrook

 

A reporter got better quotes from Damian Lillard than Russell Westbrook? Film at 11.

 

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Given The Athletic's model - which was to hire already-embedded beat writers to cover teams - I'd be surprised if *any* local beat writer got the kind of access Chris Haynes (former of ESPN, now of Yahoo, has a well-known podcast) got Monday night. It'd be like saying "how's come Wright Thompson got Michael Jordan access?" Well, because he's Wright Thompson, who works for ESPN, is why. Bill Simmons is an inveterate hack of a journalist who can barely conduct an interview without making it about himself - in other words, he's a terrible journalist - but lots of people talk to him. Why? Because he's him.

That's the business. I doubt Damian Lillard wants to invite the guy over to his house that he talks to on a frequent basis. He wants to invite the guy who just wrote about Kevin Durant and sits down with stars on a routine basis.

That said, The Athletic piece from last night was very good. It just doesn't come with a special invite. Local reporters don't get those breaks very often.

 

You didn’t read the story, did you? Haha.

And even if it were just about getting better quotes from Lillard, why didn’t the guy on the Blazers beat with insider access get them?

 

I absolutely agree with you there, which is why it clearly bothers me that The Athletic is selling subscriptions with the claim that readers will get insider access they can’t find anywhere else. That’s been proven time and again to be a fallacy.

The Blazers writer for The Athletic is very good, so this wasn’t meant to be a shot at his coverage. The thing is, I can get very good coverage of the few teams and sports I follow a number of places, and any expectation of getting more than that is met with a response that it’s unrealistic.

 

Chris Haynes has a personal relationship with Lillard that most reporters do not have. Haynes goes back to his days as a reporter in Portland, and he struck up a friendship with Lillard. Damian Lillard is not inviting "reporters" over to his house. But a friend like Haynes, yes.