Hearst papers to use Bleacher Report stories

If I were trying to compile a true 360-degree perspective on a specific event — a trade, a draft pick, or a coaching change for example — I'd want a professional journalist's opinion, but I'd also want the opinion of an incisive fan. For that matter, I'd also want to hear the team's ownership explain that trade in their own words (which a professional journalist can help to facilitate). Nothing is better than a multifaceted take on an event.

The fan should have a voice, and until the emergence of New Media, there really was not a practical way to publish the fan's perspective. There are a lot of challenges in making this a reality — identifying the best writers is certainly one of them. But those are the challenges that Bleacher Report has helped to surmount.

The Bleacher Report community has a lot of respect for the journalists on TV and in our local newspapers. We feel that we bring something additional to the table. There are a lot of people who want to hear the fan voice, provided that it is curated. That's where Bleacher Report comes in. That's one reason why our daily newsletter — which launched only six months ago — already has a circulation of 500,000 opt-in subscribers.

 

Why?

 

I see nothing wrong with Bleacher Report being used for content on these sites.

And, yes, a lot of fans enjoy to hear the viewpoints of other fans, if they are well thought out and well written.

So they don't have quotes. Most quotes are cliched bullshit anyway.

 

Apparently, this is no longer true -- not if Hearst is doing this. I'd be curious to hear about the actual compensatory/financial terms of this deal.

You are right, rpmmutant, though, in that Bleacher Report and its writers are parasites of traditional journalism. Most bloggers are.

In short, Bleacher Report fans/writers are providing a cheaper option for newspapers already looking to put staffers out of work, and cheapening the product by doing so.

Not that many owners/managers care, apparently. But that is what's happening because Bleacher Report doesn't do anything that paid professionals at these papers/Web sites couldn't do.

As far as the fans having "a voice," that's what live games are for: for them to use them. In publishing terms, that's what reader comments and fan forums are for.

 

With all due respect, that makes one of us.

 

The next "well thought out and well written" Bleacher Report article I see will be the first. I'm an internet guy and all, yes, but what the BR does is collect a random sampling of people who feel like tossing off a column and dress it up in nice software. More than one stupid rumor has been started when a dip at a newspaper takes BR for something other than a glorified message board and posts something about the rumor a 15 year old posted. The most recent example was the Pitt-to-Big-Ten hysteria.

At least when you go to http://goeagleslol.blogspot.com you go in skeptical.

 

um, no, you're not.

 

JMHO, bleacherreport is sports radio for those who can type and read.

 

Totally disagree.

As the late Pete Franklin would say so often, fan is short for fanatic. I'm obligated to provide my readers with a sober accounting of the truth, and that means talking to the primary sources: the players, the coaches, the agents and team officials. I don't need the ravings of someone distraught that the Podunk Shitkickers just traded away Johnny Doubledribble, or those who wonder why he wasn't hung from the highest tree years ago. And since the bulk of my career has been spent around high school and college sports, nor do I need to include the voice of the whiny parent who wonders why his kid isn't playing, or thinks the whole story should be about the referee who made all the calls against Podunk Tech. That is what message boards and all-sports radio is for. But that does not make them a professional colleague, which is what so many seem to want.

 

As a sportswriter at the SF Chronicle, I am leery about Bleacher Report - and became more so when a BR report story took an entire news blog post I'd put up on our SFGate website - and used it essentially word for word, only changing some graphs around. And a week or two before that, a BR post had credited a competitor with a story that I actually had had first. That's nice to see on your own website, a competitor credited with your scoop.

The good news: some furious phone calls later and both stories were taken down and the plagarist was banned from BR. I got apologies in both instances.

The bad news: I'd read both offending stories because they were headlines on SFGate.com, the Chronicle's online outlet.....and they were positioned above staff-written stories. And one of them - the plagarized post - was highlighted on our online sports front's Twitter feed, again above staff-written copy.

So you position and highlight the free content, largely written by fans and with little oversight, over the copy produced by your own people? That to me is extremely troubling. If anyone has seen the Chron's sports front on SFGate, let me know what you think about where BR is positioned. It's now below the AP feed, but for a time, it was above AP, too.

 

I'd like to see it on the right rail, perhaps flip-flopped with the sports columnists. However, I understand giving it some play, especially early on, to get people aware of it (as a strategy I mean; I still think the site is crap). Either way, the sports columnists should be in more plain view. Kind of shocked that they aren't. Anyway, the way the page is set up, not sure else where BR stuff could go (which would make sense). But I'd go right rail; at least that differentiates it from SFChron stuff.