The downfall of CBS Sports

5-6 inches?

That takes 10 minutes to type.

Who knows how long the email takes to get to the desk. We'll assume the notification comes in right away, but not always a slam-dunk.

The text has to be pasted into the (probably wonky) CMS, (presumably) edited, posted/uploaded to the site.

Then you have to email a link back to the reporter, hope that email doesn't get stuck in the tubez, and maybe the reporter posts the link in another couple minutes.

Ideal? For web traffic, sure.

Ideal? Not based on what the business has become. More importantly, not based on the edicts we get from our bosses. Someone else will have that information out 15 minutes before all that gets done.

Listen, if I had my druthers, the way you described it is the way it would work. But given what we're told by the higher-ups, it's often not practical.

 

That's basically all you can do. The only big winner is Twitter, which pays nothing for tons of great content from people getting paid by other entities.

I wonder what would happen if some big companies (ESPN, Fox, etc.) that do a lot of strong, original reporting and have huge audiences were to negotiate deals with their reporters that would ensure news is broken on their sites rather than Twitter.

 

That is the ideal for breaking news and using Twitter to drive traffic. Two problems with that, though:

1. Reporters with breaking news like that sometimes want to post the news on Twitter initially to prove they were first. They are afraid if they wait 20-30 minutes to type up a few inches, send it in, get it posted, receive the link and and tweet it that someone else will have it and tweet it.

2. Even if reporters do go the extra mile to file a story first and tweet the link, it's tricky to drive the traffic to your news story without spilling the beans on Twitter. You say too little and people ignore it; say too much and people don't need to click the link.

 

I just don't get the sense that Twitter will be big in 2025.

It's too inefficient. Too much noise. People sign up for it, then bail.

How many times has this happened to you ?

Need more information on a person. You see that they're on Twitter. You think to yourself, "Oh good. I can go directly to Twitter to find out what this person has to say."

You go to the person's Twitter feed only to see that their last Tweet was March of 2013.

 

It's true. It's been that way for 5-10 years. Do you really give a shit who breaks a story? And who cares if ESPN reported it first and you had it 180 seconds later on Yahoo? The sports media industry is all shit now. I would never have signed up for this type of work 25 years ago had I known the changes that were ahead. What once was a great and respected profession has turned to shit.

 

When the LPGA latches onto it, that's when you know it's past peak.

 

I guess "reporting" only entails breaking news?

I mean, there should still be tremendous value in those who can seek out and produce quality feature stories. Those can't be aggregated.

 

I'm still having trouble putting together that a site that does 90 percent of its job in either aggregating or throwing out Vines, video like a JV Deadspin (to be fair, I do check the morning links) is writing a story slamming another website for doing what TBL has done with some level of success. I respect that JM is trying to become a media reporter but for me, I'm not sure you can have it both ways like he's trying to have it. "Here's how aggregation is affecting the Industry" and yet a quick check of the site 5 mins ago I saw that was the ONLY piece of original reporting within a scroll's worthy of material.

 

Oh he doesn't aggregate.

He curates.