The Athletic layoffs

I posted to Felter a couple of weeks ago that he hasn't said anything different than anybody else over the past 10 or so years. He is giving us a history lesson and we already lived it and are living it.

 

Sometimes he drives really slow in the ultra fast lane
While people behind him are going insane

 

Poke around this site, you’ll see a lot of people who think that print still has growth potential and will knock anything new or innovative. Well, sorry, but innovation is the only way any of us will have jobs 10 years from now. If they’re so in touch, they would bring something more insightful to the table than complaints about things no longer being the way they used to be.

I don’t know if the moderators can pull this data, but I’d guess 90 percent of the people on this message board are 50-plus.

 

Early in this thread, I tried to start a discussion about all the things that even the most “digital-first” newspapers still do that they wouldn’t have to do if there was no print product. Pro sports game stories posted late at night that no one reads, fluff features to “fill space” that no one reads.

Could have been a interesting discussion. What’s the solution that lets us do less work that has no digital benefit when we’re still a slave to print?

Instead it turned it a bunch of bitter oldies whining about what the print product has become. Let’s do better. Let’s stop looking back and start looking forward.

 

Don't even start with the ageism bullshit. The two finders of Axios are over 50. A decent percentage of the people who are editors or write for The Athletic are also nearing 50 or are over 50. I would defer more to Moddy on that though.
I've seen many 20-30 year olds who need knocked down a couple times to see if they can withstand adversity and get up. I've also seen some 20-30 year olds who are more wise and experienced than some older people I've worked with.

 

Agreed, I’ve worked with 75 year olds who learned how to edit their own videos in iMovie and I’ve worked with 25 year olds who take 7 hours to write a breaking news story. Age isn’t everything. But there’s clearly a lot of people on here (likely older) who refused to adapt to a changing world and now harbor a bitterness toward the industry rather than looking in the mirror.

 

Post-padding at a Dooley level, props to you for that, at least.

 

There's also a good percentage of people on this board who adapted in a changing world, changed on a dime when their companies changed philosophies every six months, did everything right and still got laid off or fucked over. Old and young. So do us all a favor, quick looking at yourself in the mirror and maybe consider that despite doing everything humanly possible you can still get shit on while others who coast by or inflicted the pain still remain. It's one of the unfortunate circles of life.

 

Totally. I got laid off in 2015, no fault of my own, but was lucky enough to land a new job in the business and things have gone well since. Others who were just as good or better than me weren’t so lucky. But the answer isn’t to come on here and whine and complain and root against the people trying to find a path to success in this business. Find a better channel for that bitterness.

 

You're the one who needs to worry about the future. Us old farts in the business are happily on the back nine, and I never spent my youth in a pandemic.

 

That's your fucking takeaway from this thread? That newspaper vets want The Athletic to fail?

Jesucristo. Fredrick is a nonce who speaks only for himself. He's not indicative of anything larger.

 

Ha, I definitely wouldn’t say I’m in my youth. Middle age is more like it. But if you’re so happily on the back nine, what are you doing on here complaining?