The NYT and The Athletic

The rotating editors complaint is kind of laughable, too. Every newspaper desk has been dealing with this for a decade. If you can't adapt to different story asks at different times, you're not a very versatile writer, sorry. I mean, hell, beat guys do that on a daily basis.

 

writers being required to secure subs is the new “we need you to sell ads” attempts of old newspaper management

shouldn’t be happening but that’s today’s world

 

One of the challenges I've seen with The Athletic - I assume Kravitz ran up against this a little bit - is the the operation's desire for people to...not write too much.

Kravitz will write as much or as little as we he wants now and typically at newspapers, the desks weren't kicking a mediocre column out of bed because it didn't fit the editor's vision. But at The Athletic there seemed to be a premium against being prolific, and editors, whoever they were, having too great a control over a writer's output and story choice. And in a sense that would be maddening - The Athletic wanted to fleece talent from local news operations, then put the talent on a pitch count.

It was an odd, catered-toward-prestige approach for a start-up.

 

Paying attention to subs is OK. Really. It helps to know where not to put your resources, for one thing.

Of course, The Athletic covers stuff that I damn well know gets no subs, just like half of the stuff on Grantland got about 437 readers.

 

Indiana Bob and the Last Crusade?

I think I mentioned it on the book thread few months ago but The Athletic discussion definitely calls to mind Ben Smith's book Traffic, which focuses on Buzzfeed and Gawker's obsession with it and how it made each company in the beginning but eventually led to unintended consequences and eventually each company's downfall.

 

I know of a couple of niche sites doing the metrics thing really hard, and the crashes will be wild.

 

Coming soon: The Athletic Progress Edition

 

Union beef.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/07/20/new-york-times-sports-union-athletic/

 

How does The Athletic determine “conversions”?
The author of a story from which a reader clicks to subscribe gets credit? I understand that. But in some cases, a decision to commit money is not immediate but longer term.
“That story is well written. I like it. Maybe there are more like it. Ok. Here’s another. I’ll read that. That’s also good. Having seen multiple stories that I like, I am convinced that I should subscribe.”
So who gets credit? Only the person from whose story the subscription click came?

Seems like the gig to have at this place is as an editor.