The NYT and The Athletic

Since Axios didn’t buy The Athletic - and the NYT did - figured a new thread was in order.

We’ll start with Barry over at the media police - which is one of Defector’s primary functions - digging into how the NYT wants to have Athletic staffers stick to sports.

https://defector.com/the-nyt-owned-athletic-lays-down-new-no-politics-rule-for-staff/

 

see also,

It's OK not to have an opinion.

 

I'm more interested in, look, the NYT rescued The Athletic, which was not going to survive on its own, and the NYT's mild social media policy - "hey, could you not indict one specific political party as a sportswriter?" - is met with "eh, let's call the media police."

The point of the article is to apply pressure on the NYT to back down.

 

Booty shakin' by certain reporters is still okay though.

 

Laura Wagner is the new Phil Mushnick.

 

Jack Del Rio thinks this is bullshit.

 

The article mentioned that reporter's travel is being limited, but doesn't explain.

 

That seemed like the bigger story to me as well.

 

Well, it has to be run like a business now. It was run like a kid with a trust fund before.

 

She's writing about how Black Lives Matter is racist?

 

From talking to a few people I know there, the travel budget has been slashed significantly and is a much bigger deal to most who work there than the social media policy. They were kind of perturbed that the Defector piece only mentioned it in passing.

 

Half of the appeal of the place, that they have reporters everywhere the team goes, even if there isn’t a story every day and focusing on quality not quantity, is out the window.