The NYT and The Athletic

What kind of appendage is The Athletic? That's a good parlor game.

Possibilities:

— A wart
— A penis
— An appendix (internal, but flares up occasionally)
— The wenis (also weenus, weenis; the loose skin at the elbow)
— Extra toe or finger

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/07/09/new-york-times-sports-turmoil-athletic/

“For 18 months, The New York Times has left its sports staff twisting in the wind,” the letter, which was obtained by the Washington Post, stated. “We have watched the company buy a competitor with hundreds of sportswriters and weigh decisions about the future of sports coverage at The Times without, in many instances, so much as a courtesy call, let alone any solicitation of our expertise.

“The company’s efforts appear to be coming to a head, with The Times pursuing a full-scale technological migration of The Athletic to The Times’s platforms and the threat that the company will effectively shut down our section.”

 

If you go to the Times site, in the sections header at the top it lists “News” among the sections. Included in News is Sports along with others such as Business, World and so on.

The Athletic has its own tab. Sports is buried, TA is easily visible along with Wirecutter and Games.

 

It's not the most important element of the story, but the detail that stood out to me was that the sports department has roughly as many full-time employees as the Herald did in 2005 before its first round of buyouts and layoffs. Needless to say, we weren't quite as big an operation as a whole paper than the Times. Almost everything the Times does in sports is high quality, but even before the Athletic takeover, the paper didn't make a priority of the day to day nuts and bolts of a sports section, opting for the macro view from above approach.

 

New York Times to close Sports desk, rely on the Athletic for daily coverage

 

Shopping out work from union to non-union workers has been the source of much labor-management strife.

 

From the NYTimes: The New York Times to Disband Its Sports Department.

 

The Athletic is fine for beat stuff. Its longform and commentary quality is...not great.

 

jfc

 

I wonder if the Athletic's announcement that English Premier League coverage is a priority was to serve the Times substantial international readership.

 

Which I suspect is why none of the existing staff are being transferred to the Athletic but all have been promised jobs elsewhere in the paper. The Times does not want an active union inside the Athletic but if existing employees maintain jobs it reduces the likelihood of a successful grievance.

 

"Hey, you better be glad you still HAVE a job and should thank me for that! Now, move along to that other section here and do your work to help us stay nimble, robust and future-centric."