Oklahoman shakeup

I've wondered if I would have asked the right questions in regards to the finances had I been recruited by Sellout. I can't say that I would have based on some of the advice/questions that Todd's followers were leaving in the mentions.

I was recruited for a different start-up a couple years ago. I turned the job down but had a friend who eventually accepted. The finances have been fine so far with that start-up, but some of the journalistic problems they have run into were issues that I wouldn't have bothered to even think about while I was being courted. In retrospect, these issues seem obvious and glaring but they would have been afterthoughts to me during the recruitment phase.

I guess that the moral of the story is that joining a journalism start-up in 2024 is a blind leap of faith on so many levels.

 

Hindsight is obviously 20/20.

But in Contracts 101 you learn that guaranteed money is only as good as the money guaranteeing it. If the guy who gave you the contract does not have the money then the guarantee is worthless.

Also, these start-ups almost always begin as limited liability corporations. Someone can go around and sign-up rich, celebrity investors who contribute their name. The liability of the celebrity is limited to his investment. The liability of the celebrity is limited to his investment. Maybe he kicked in 10K and went to the initial press conference at the beginning. The rich celebrity has no further obligation.

 

I don't really fault Todd, or even the big names for taking the leap here on shaky business footing. Nobody in journalism school is ever taught about how the media companies actually make money or just standard business principles. A harsh learning lesson for the rest of the industry.

It's also 100% worth going to court to get the owed salary for everyone who was duped, unless that contract was very firm and they didn't read it thoroughly.

 

Do Tramel and Carlson have electronic media side hustles? If so it’s easier for someone like that to take a leap of faith. Even if it’s dead in six months, they still have a decent income stream.

 

They're such known quantities that someone will take them afterwards, which I'm sure will happen to at least one, if not both, very shortly.

 

I wonder if the 3-year contract was going to be enough to take Tramel into a comfortable retirement? He's gotta be about at that age, I'm thinking.

 

This is such a great point. I was fortunate in that I was stringing in college, so I got a glimpse at the business side of things. It also reminded me I should have majored in anything BUT journalism, b/c classroom theory is utterly useless in the real world and I learned everything I needed to learn--both as a writer and about the business--either as a stringer or while working on the campus paper. I know enough about my alma mater's journalism program to know that, all these years later, they still have minimal interest in real world expertise in the classroom. The dean of the program is a bullshit artist who has basically been in PR for 20 years. I'm sure the alma mater is not alone in this regard.

 

What employee thinks getting paid for three years up front is something that happens?

And when the terms continually change before you sign, the alarm bells should be going off.

 

Carlson has started a substack page.

 

A Reverse Ohtani. Not happening. Certainly not in journalism.

As someone else said, this whole saga underscores how remarkable the success of the Pittsburgh start-up has been.
The OKC thing had some quality people, but in the end, it's closer to Triple-A than big league as a sports town.

 

I hope this thing was better for him than sticking it out at the Oklahoman would have been. In other words, I hope the move spared him the corporatist hangman's noose and that he can retire as he presumably planned years ago.

 

He's a lot younger than I thought he was, to the point I thought this might be some sort of vanity project for someone 10 years older