Columnist opening in Orlando

If the words "blow job" aren't in her first Page 2 piece, I'm canceling my Insider subscription.

 

I was about to be upset by the comment about the people on here using their real names saying the most intelligent stuff. Then I remembered it came from a poster who often seems determined to disprove that very statement.

And I really don't see how writing for a big-time national sports news outlet can hurt somebody whose previous career highlight is either her job as a columnist in Orlando or blog entry about blow jobs, depending who you ask.

And I think the criticism of Hill in this case is pretty clearly about her, not ESPN. If we all just thought ESPN sucks and it was a bad gig, why would we even care that she was going there?

I know what you were trying to say, I just think it was a reach that didn't quite get where you wanted it to go.

 

I will agree with this, with one exception: I don't identify myself by my real name (it's not too hard to figure out), but I'd like to think I've said some intelligent things here.

Like I said before, our business has big problems. Jemele's hiring of ESPN isn't even on my list.

 

Are you kidding? A thread like this would be worth framing, if it didn't take up so much space. At the very least, I hope she'll throw it in her scrapbook. I mean, really, how many of us would ever generate this much discussion -- good, bad or indifferent?

 

nah, I wouldn't worry about writers with no talent moving up through the ranks if I was you.

lets keep rewarding mediocrity and wonder why newspapers are slowly becoming irrelevant.

 

No, there is writing that a large plurality of people who make words their living would agree is good writing, and writing they would generally agree is not. Or do you really think what some snarky college paper columnist writes is as good as what Jim Murray wrote, since someone out there surely thinks the college writer is the bee's knees?

 

The people who hate Jemele the most, the ones whose blood is absolutely boiling over this, have only themselves to blame. They couldn't get over their obsession with the third columnist in Orlando, who -- I know, it's totally a coincidence, right? -- just happened to be the only black female columnist in the country, so they constantly linked her stories here again and again and again, then ranted over and over about how cruel and unfair the world was, and guess what happened? It raised her profile enough that someone gave her a chance to do even bigger things.

Let Us Now Praise The SportsJournalists.com Haters Club, for they are Kingmakers of the highest order.

 

well, this happens be a journalism site so I will stay focused on that part of the problem, change is made at home.

and like it or not, the public lumps journalists all together, be they online or hard copy. Going from the Orlando Sentinel newspaper to the ESPN.com website is going to be viewed as an advancement.

 

disagree....the two things that got her hired at every job she has had were bestowed upon her well before anyone on SportsJournalists.com posted about her.

 

Well, and I love the Sentinel and remain a print guy, but going from a good regional paper to one of the big three sports websites -- when the web is only going to get bigger -- IS an advancement.

Our writers still get mail at our place saying, "Hey, you must be a hack, you're only writing for Big Sportswebsite.com."

Meanwhile, those writers are getting thousands upon thousands of page views and hundreds of feedback e-mails a week.

The owners of the biggest sports websites are some of the biggest media companies in the world.

At some point, people are going to realize that those jobs are just as "big time" as those at the biggest newspapers.

What throws people, I think, is that there's some different kind of work going on on those websites.

Some in print equate "different" with "substandard." And certainly, I pass through things in the editing process I never would have thought of 10 years ago before I took this step.

But I have a different audience now. Some of our writers are more traditional. But some aren't, and that's certainly OK, too.

And some here will never get that, or at least haven't yet.

 

A large plurality of people who make their living deciding who's good-looking would generally agree that Brad Pitt is hot.

Your wife (at the very least, there are probably more) decidedly thinks that you are hot. She might not agree with the plurality and may not necessarily think Brad Pitt is all that.

Therefore, you are also hot. It doesn't mean Brad Pitt is not hot. You are both hot – to someone, or many.

Are you going to tell your wife that she's completely full of shit, that Brad Pitt is hot and you are swill compared to him and that her taste is completely messed up?
Well, you could. But wouldn't be a great long-term plan.

And there are no degrees of hot, because there is hot, and there is not. I'll take your Brad Pitt and give you George Clooney. Someone might prefer Jon Cryer. Because someone thinks Jon Cryer is not, doesn't necessarily mean she thinks Brad is not hot.


(P.S. the college writer's readers may indeed think he's the bee's knees. And they might not know Jim Murray from Eddie Murray. So to those 10,000 people on campus, there's no contest. Even if you force-fed them some classic Murray, it wouldn't sway them a bit because he is not speaking their language. So it doesn't matter a whit whether something is "good" or "bad" by some plurality.

That's just theoretical, and not exactly objective, either. In the world, theory pretty much gets its ass kicked by reality.)

 

No, just her. And sometimes on a bad hair day, I don't even have that.