Sporting News/AOL Fanhouse

MileHigh · Mar 1, 2011

Mystery Meat II said:

Moderator1 said:

Yeah. It kind of sucks. To WBCC's point above, he's right. And it's because we care about each other and felt we owed to each other to go out strong. It's a bond I hope to replicate in my new job. It sounds corny unless you've been there but this has been an amazingly tight group.
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Similar experience with my last newspaper job. When they shut us down at the end of 2008, they notified us with six weeks to go. There might have been a couple of times where people let their quality control slip, and I know I was distracted on some edit jobs thinking about my impending unemployment, but the final products were every bit as good as the ones we published when we were on firmer ground. A lot of that owes, as in your case, to our being very close as a group. Of my core of best friends, three worked at the paper, and one of their boyfriends is the fourth. And, as with FanHouse, we had that startup zeal, which leads to a greater sense of ownership of the product.
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Same with us in 2008/2009. We got put up for sale at the beginning of December and Scripps said it would give it six weeks then evaluate things. We all knew it was a pipe dream that someone would ride in on a white horse to save it, especially with the holidays coming up. So there was a sense of dread in mid-January and you just waited every day for that hammer to drop, because you knew it was coming. It finally did ... at the end of February. And we were told that was it, last paper the next day. But during the time of uncertainty, everyone in that newsroom busted their asses and still put out a high-quality product, even though virtually everyone knew the end was coming.

Andy _ Kent · Mar 1, 2011

Well, I took a little longer to contribute my farewell offering because I was writing live stuff all the way up to about 30 minutes before the plug was pulled on accepting content last night. Even then it didn't seem 100 percent real -- until this morning when I clicked on my bookmarked link and had the Sporting News home page come up instead. Though my tenure was not nearly as long as so many others (7 months beginning early in training camp) I can say it was a rewarding experience and a pleasure to work with professionals at every level. What also saddens me when it specifically has to with those of us linked to NFL Fanhouse is the awful timing of this. The ability to land jobs in this climate of a pending lockout has been severely hamstrung.

To that end, I am extremely happy for AFC South blogger John Oehser to have landed in Jacksonville with Jaguars.com full-time. And I will keep my fingers crossed for the rest of us.

Andy Kent

Andy _ Kent · Mar 3, 2011

Hey, has anybody weighed in on the transition and their thoughts on the Fanhouse page now on Sporting News' site?

Moderator1 · Mar 10, 2011

AOL laid off about 900 more today, including some of the FanHouse crew who stayed.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-10/aol-to-cut-up-to-900-jobs-as-ceo-armstrong-integrates-huffington-post.html

LongTimeListener · Mar 10, 2011

Moderator1 said:

AOL laid off about 900 more today, including some of the FanHouse crew who stayed.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-10/aol-to-cut-up-to-900-jobs-as-ceo-armstrong-integrates-huffington-post.html
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This article says nothing about whether the next Patch party will have an open bar.

wicked · Mar 10, 2011

It's pretty bad when you're ditching employees who work in India, working in already outsourced jobs, and pawning them off on another firm.

rmanfredi · Mar 10, 2011

On the flip side, Demand Studios writers can expect an influx of sports-related topics within the next few weeks.

Turtle Wexler · Mar 10, 2011

MileHigh said:

Mystery Meat II said:

Moderator1 said:

Yeah. It kind of sucks. To WBCC's point above, he's right. And it's because we care about each other and felt we owed to each other to go out strong. It's a bond I hope to replicate in my new job. It sounds corny unless you've been there but this has been an amazingly tight group.
Click to expand...

Similar experience with my last newspaper job. When they shut us down at the end of 2008, they notified us with six weeks to go. There might have been a couple of times where people let their quality control slip, and I know I was distracted on some edit jobs thinking about my impending unemployment, but the final products were every bit as good as the ones we published when we were on firmer ground. A lot of that owes, as in your case, to our being very close as a group. Of my core of best friends, three worked at the paper, and one of their boyfriends is the fourth. And, as with FanHouse, we had that startup zeal, which leads to a greater sense of ownership of the product.
Click to expand...

Same with us in 2008/2009. We got put up for sale at the beginning of December and Scripps said it would give it six weeks then evaluate things. We all knew it was a pipe dream that someone would ride in on a white horse to save it, especially with the holidays coming up. So there was a sense of dread in mid-January and you just waited every day for that hammer to drop, because you knew it was coming. It finally did ... at the end of February. And we were told that was it, last paper the next day. But during the time of uncertainty, everyone in that newsroom busted their asses and still put out a high-quality product, even though virtually everyone knew the end was coming.
Click to expand...

With apologies for the threadjack, there's a lot of logic to going out strong.

You assume that once the pending doom announcement is made, people will pay closer attention to your product ("Oh, that's the one that's in trouble. Let me look at it.").

You don't want to give those new people, or longtime readers, a reason to think you routinely produced crap and that's why they're dropping the hammer.

YankeeFan · Mar 10, 2011

Turtle Wexler said:

With apologies for the threadjack, there's a lot of logic to going out strong.

You assume that once the pending doom announcement is made, people will pay closer attention to your product ("Oh, that's the one that's in trouble. Let me look at it.").

You don't want to give those new people, or longtime readers, a reason to think you routinely produced crap and that's why they're dropping the hammer.
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But, in a lot of cases leave for other jobs once they know there's an end date.

The folks at the Rocky Mountain News deserve credit for going out on a high note. The fact that so many employees were left to do so, points to both the short notice they received (though the handwriting was on the wall) and the lack of opportunities available to flee to.

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Sporting News/AOL Fanhouse

MileHigh Moderator Staff Member

Andy _ Kent Member

Andy _ Kent Member

Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

wicked Well-Known Member

rmanfredi Active Member

Turtle Wexler Member

YankeeFan Well-Known Member

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Sporting News/AOL Fanhouse

MileHigh Moderator Staff Member

Andy _ Kent Member

Andy _ Kent Member

Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

wicked Well-Known Member

rmanfredi Active Member

Turtle Wexler Member

YankeeFan Well-Known Member

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