Replacing Kravitz at the Indianapolis Star is...

Probably him or Albom.

 

Guys, Ramos doesn't oversee sports any more. OK?
There is a new person in charge in sports. The new person and Doyel are 1HPGrads as well. It's going to work quite well.

 

So many of the deals for the bigger columnists who are still at papers either have radio or TV shows tied into them and they're given carte blanche to freelance or work for ESPN, Fox Sports, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report etc...

A columnist I worked with once told me all of the specifics in his contract. He had first-class travel in his deal. He also had it in his contract that he would cover the Super Bowl, Final Four, all four golf majors, Wimbledon and a few other huge events every year.

 

Good to hear about Ronnie. I had almost forgotten that Doyel covered the Marlins briefly early in his career.

 

I wonder how good that columnist was or, more important, how good his sports section was.

It's quaint, I'm sure, what I'm about to relate, but the very best old-school columnists didn't big-league their colleagues, especially the beat writers. They valued those folks for the stream of ideas they could provide and wanted to maintain respect by being "team" guys. The only way a columnist could always fly first class and not be seen as rubbing other staffers' noses in it would be to fly separately.

Nothing erodes morale in a sports section quicker than someone getting VIP treatment and then working less hard than the other staffers. Well, a jackass boss erodes it faster, but you know what I'm saying. The gap in pay and privilege often is greater than the gap in ability and production, with some portion of it attributable to opportunity.

 

Why the Ted Baxter caricature was so incisive.
Every department has/had a Ted Baxter.
Usually it's the lead columnist.

 

In my experience, that's been the exception.

 

Then who has been the diva?
In my experience, the star columnist is self-centered, imperious and a habitual deadline offender.
One set of rules for him <=> one set for everybody else.

 

I've seen the same in the three newsrooms I've worked in. One of the most obvious traits is the belief that the style guide doesn't apply to columns.

 

For the most part, I've had the pleasure to work with columnists who are really, really good people.

But I also worked with one who basically treated the job as his ticket to tour the country. Would go into a town two days before the NFL team's game, rent a car and tour the coast or wherever. His writing style also was best described as "let me show you how smart I am, even if you don't learn a fucking thing by reading this."

 

Been around some good columnists. And some who insisted
on a rule that not one word could be changed by the desk.

Sometimes they were the same guy.

 

When I was a columnist, I had some fights with the desk, and sometimes I still believe I was right, but they were reasonably rare and I'm not proud of any of 'em. In the end, the desk made me better far more often than not. I always thought the beat writers were the steak in the section, and we columnists just the onion rings. Onion rings can be delicious and people love them, but they're not why those people drop the big bucks at Smith & Wollensky or Ruth's Chris.