Bleacher Report Changes

Yeah, no.

I wasn't counting press conferences or snippets used in columns or post-game recaps. I also wasn't counting post game press junkets were a "beat jockey" gets one question in out of 10 reporters standing there.

I was only counting one-on-one, face-to-face/phone interviews.

Turn your nose down, just a little.

 

The defensiveness is telling.

 

Hey Schottey,

I read your post, and it all feels like a band-aid on a throbbing wound.

Taking steps toward improving the quality of the material is fantastic, but it's only half the problem. I'm glad to know my Google News feeds might be less cluttered going forward, but when is B/R going to stop cheapening what people are employed to do?

If the Examiner can afford to pay their writers a fraction of a penny with significantly less traffic, then why is there hesitation to provide freelance wages to the writers whose headlines are the very lifeblood of the site?

What's insane is that the Examiner requires its writers to post a minimum of three articles per week, and B/R makes the same request (demand?) of its Featured Columnists -- the first of whom were appointed after last year's disgusting search for writers to get a CBS Rapid Reports gig.

To put it bluntly, when are the more talented/committed writers going to be paid? That's the strongest step you all could take toward legitimizing your product in this industry.

 

If you are a managing editor, then any credibility that BR has should be tossed out because there are thousands of people who can write a grammatically-correct sentence that could use a job. How much does your job pay, $30,000 a year?

 

Counting the number of interviews you've done says it better than any post ever could.

 

"Yeah, well, how many notepads did you go through last month? I filled six! BOOYA!"

 

I don't know what the business model of Examiner is. But, generally, the sites that pay a fraction of a penny aren't paying much of anything. I would encourage any top notch B/R writer to move to another site if they think it is a better situation but many of our top writers willingly trade "fractions of pennies" for greater amounts of traffic.

I can speak to the CBS situation, because I was part of it. It was not Bleacher Report who pulled the plug on the search, but CBS responding to the financial climate and the realization that many experienced sports beat writers were seeking work and willing to work for $400/week.

 

Obviously, I don't know the details of how Examiner does it, but it's rooted in ad revenue. Given B/R's "greater amounts of traffic" and stronger advertisers, it's a safe assumption that B/R can afford those same pennies. And if it wants to be a legitimate news site, it's something they should be trying to afford.

Paying a strong writer who threw a detailed, 800-word column on your site a penny per page view is chump change, but it should happen. It's a better tactic than throwing around Intern Coordinator titles, that's for sure.

Legitimacy isn't only in editing standards and experienced journalists to head up the brand. It's in how your company values the free labor that a lot of people who don't know better willingly give away. It's the fact that B/R doesn't want to pay, nor educate its young writers to the true value of their words that disappoints me most. Sure, it might cripple the site's business model -- but maybe that needs to happen.

 

That "over" mistake was one I made often as a novice journalist. It wasn't until I began an internship at one of my city's dailies that I learned to use "more than" instead.

For all the editing standards and experience BR boasts, that's a mistake found all too often on that site.

 

Oh, I'm sorry.

An OK few months for a good beat jockey. Or an investigative reporter. Or a community reporter. Or a very busy freelancer . . .

In any event, I'll be interested to see how Bleacher Report does, moving forward. Its caliber of poster here (from Andy Auger to you) has certainly improved greatly.

 

Whatever happened to ole Andy?