Hearst papers to use Bleacher Report stories

Didn't miss a thing. A bunch of sentences in search of a story that didn't make sense. But is that not what we expect from the likes of BR?

 

I am a young blogger and I started out writing on a website like Bleacher Report a few years ago when it launched so I could get page views and hits to my articles.

I am a good writer and sports analyst/columnist and now I want to be paid for my work. BR is taking advantage of young guys like me who wanted to get into the business by having us work and write for free but what they offered us was a lot of readers.

So no one is putting a gun to my head or anyone's head in having our work published on BR but sometimes it's not easy to get readers when you are young and starting up.

Nowadays I feel that I should be PAID for my hard work and writing so I don't publish or syndicate my content as much to BR since I am getting paid by other websites to write and cover events.

All the established journalists like Susan Slusser from the Chron or Dan Brown from the Mercury News are good writers and I can understand their angst.

One of the reasons I stopped publishing on BR as much is because I didn't want to get a bad reputation since there are a lot of 17-year-old fanboys who write and publish on there and I don't want to be lumped with those guys who don't know how to write or don't know much about what they are writing about.

A lot of these guys have errors in grammar and spelling too.

I did get into sports events with a press credential through Bleacher Report a few times as well but now I get paid for going to events and I don't need them and they don't need me either since they have other guys who cover events for them for free.

I remember seeing a craigs list ad that paid a $1000 monthly stipend for you to work for BR from 9 to 5 Monday to Friday. They can take advantage of the poor college student needing a break I guess but sometimes you have to be smarter than that and realize those are slave wages.

My friends have seen the BR articles and links on SFGate.com and thought they were expert articles on the 49ers and copied and pasted who the 49ers were looking at and possible mock draft picks and when I told them that those guys make Gwen Knapp and Scott Ostler seem like bona fide experts, they knew that what they were reading was not professional or good journalism.

It is just a bunch of amateurs writing nonsense usually ALTHOUGH there are good articles and writers on there sometimes just as there are good articles in the Chronicle at times too.

Those writers on BR should be compensated but I don't blame BR for anything since they are smart businessmen and making good money off add revenue without having to pay the writers. I wish I could have came up with that!

BR also has the writers write for SI.com, Foxsports.com, and CBSsports.com. For Free but hey you can tell your cousin and the hot chick on campus that your work was published on those big sites!!!!!!

And for all those writers who hate on bloggers, there are so many great great bloggers out there especially sports bloggers. Go to sbnation.com and check out those great team sports blogs or truehoop.com on ESPN where the bloggers analyze the games that newspaper writers can't since they don't have the space in a newspaper to carry as many articles and words.

 

No, you can't.

 

You, sir, are a master wordsmith.

 

The only problem I have with Bleacher Report is that it shows up in Google News. If you're going to put Bleacher Report "stories" in Google News, you might as well put Rivals message board posts or message board posts from here.

How do you get better as a writer? Well, mainly you write. Bleacher Report can certainly be part of that. I'm sure the next generation of great sportswriters will include some writers who either go their start at BR or did some work there at some time.

But it's not content that should appear in Google News next to real reporting.

 

I do kind of enjoy the fact the example of good writers provided is me....and my husband. Does former BR guy know that? And....do I know him?

I got a Facebook message from someone demanding to know why I don't like BR. It's not that I don't like it: I'm all for fans having a voice. If they want to write for free, fine, like ex-BR guy says, no one is making them.

I do have concerns when it's on the site that my newspaper is also on and presented as if it is comparable material. It is not. And when there are instances of plagiarism and inaccuracy, I'm doubly concerned.

I wouldn't be so bugged if it was on our site and clearly labeled to indicate that it is free content provided by fans, and if it was distinctly separate from Chronicle content. Right now, there is too little to indicate that it's a wildly different product. There's no reason it shouldn't have a niche.....but mingled right in with professional journalists? No.

 

This may be why BR articles get so many page views. Well one of the reasons besides being on Hearst newspapers as links and other websites linking to them.

When I told one media guy for a sports team that I wrote for bleacher report, he got all excited and said he liked how that site is syndicated by Si.com and Foxsports.com.

 

No it is not a coincidence that I mentioned you and Dan Brown as well. Your husband came to mind as I started typing out my reply on this forum. I liked his article on the 49ers today. The Merc is a good paper.

I don't think most know that BR is a wholly different product than SFGate.com. Some other friends of mine didn't know until I had to mention it to them and explain the whole BR angle and how I even had my articles on there.

Professional journalists are not perfect either and I have seen many inaccurate articles, plagarism, and the like as well from these "professional" journalists but let's not get off the topic at hand here.

I don't think BR should be lumped in with the paid sportswriters on sfgate.com or any other paper for that matter. The real winners of this is BR and the losers are the writers who write for free and the paid journalists who have to be lumped in with the amateurs.

Are your fellow writers at the Chron as dismayed as you are? I would assume so if they knew about BR. Any chance you guys can talk to the sports editor about this situation? Good luck. I know it is very frustrating for a lot of folks.

 

And how do BR writers get punished when they do this? Because I know how I'd be dealt with if I did it for my paper.

 

These decisions aren't made at the sports editor level, I think they're straight from the corporation. You can safely assume any sports editor wouldn't be in favor of this intermingling of their staff's product and free content from fans.

GB-Hack is right: Plagiarism gets you fired, pronto, and repeated inaccuracies will do the trick, too. I worked at a newspaper where I saw the first happen twice and the second happen at least once with a full-time staffer - and numerous times with part-timers. You don't get, or keep, fulltime newspaper jobs if you can't get the facts right.

 

BR writers will have their article deleted or edited by an editor intern. If they do it consistently I guess they could get banned but since they are not employees of BR, they can't be fired or anything since they aren't getting paid anyways. It just hurts the rep of BR I guess.