USAT reorg

Any place that makes people currently employed "apply" for their jobs is already missing a huge chunk of its soul. I don't care who the old or new managers are. If the boss isn't an amateur, he ought to be able to get rolling with people on a case-by-case basis, not require a big reset button.

But they can do it, so they do do it.

 

I'm not in Morgan's head and so don't know for sure, but I really think it is just a perception, perhaps even a fair one if it is based on the hires he made at Yahoo!

But I don't think Morgan won't hire women. I think it is that he will hire the person or people whom he thinks best, without regard for color, race, gender or creed. He's not somebody who will make a diversity hire just for the sake of having a diverse staff, or representing a particular viewpoint. Now, who knows how that go over at USAT, of course, but he'd want the best staff, whatever its makeup, and with no apologies for that makeup, either.

And, based on Yahoo's lineup of writers, I'm not sure you can argue too much about the quality of that staff.

 

Gannett has always been known for eating its young. Now, the old aren't safe any more.

 

I'm curious here, not trying to be flip: Who at USAT sports is considered a must-read?

 

I find the "Pay to Play" arrangements - particularly with NASCAR - disgusting. This is journalism? I thought payola was illegal when radio stations were pinched in the 1950s. Look at the way the coverage has gone up this year in NASCAR and the fact that both the paper operates this way and the "sanctioning body" signs off on this to get exposure is just stomach turning. Guess I'm naive if this is the way the business is today.

 

Radio stations fall under the FCC, because technically, the airwaves belong to the public, and are given out to private entities. So the stations have to obey FCC rules.

But I still find it hard to believe stations don't take some money. How else, besides utter cheapness, do you explain why they play the same song 100 times a week?

This doesn't also take into account the utter hypocrisy that Gannett foists on their employees in making them adhere to ethics rules that state they cannot have any business relationship that can cause readers to question their objectivity.

But, as we've seen many times, rules don't apply to the uberclass. It's only the lowly minions who have to obey them.

 

Yep. They've done this a couple of times, once with a sprawling dotcom reorg that really did change everyone's jobs. You'd expect better from this group if everyone hyping Morgan is correct.

Yes and no. They do some terrific investigations, but they have some horrible bloggers and a couple of writers who make you scratch your head.

All staffs could benefit from a little diversity, in any case.

Of course, the one female staffer I can think of at Yahoo gets assaulted by a bunch of stupid kids in the comments every time she posts something, so maybe their audience isn't the most enlightened in the world.

 

I only read a few Yahoo blogs, and I never read their non-rev stuff, so I can't offer an educated opinion on that.
Will say nobody can match its MLB coverage for news or great reads, Wojo is a news-breaking monster on the NBA, Wetzel is a must-read on colleges, Cole seems to break a lot of NFL news and Robinson's investigative stuff crushes everybody.
As lineups go, it's pretty '27 Yankee-esque.

 

It's tough to compare the two. Obviously, USAT doesn't have the talent that Yahoo does, but what it does have is a lot of people who were among the best writers at big papers who now get paid close to six figures to write 30 inches a week and get 10 weeks off a year.

That might not be the case with everyone there, and I have heard stories about how some writers there are run into the ground, but that seems to be the exception.

Two of the friends I have who are there will be the first to admit that it's one of the cushiest jobs out there and that's exactly why they took it.

 

These days the "cushier" the job, the more likely you are to be laid off.

 

No kidding... And there are no shortage of cushy jobs at USAT.

 

Mizzou ... maybe in that coasting sense it is a destination job, somewhat like the reporting-grind to columnist ascent.
And Geddy is an expert in non-rev sports, so I trust his assessment there. I don't read enough of it to know one way or another.