The Athletic keeps growing .......

Why would The Athletic care about giving Buckley a "landing spot," unless it wanted his columns on the site? (Is he freelance? That would figure ...)

 

Need to change the saying to, "I'm good enough to leave The Plain Dealer for The Athletic."

 

That's what I was trying to figure out. Buckley isn't relevant in Boston, so why is The Athletic hiring him? Maybe somebody was being nice, giving Buckley something so it can look like he was moving to another job when all he is getting is a freelance gig before the Herald cuts him.

 

I've read that The Athletic puts a lot of value on writers with a lot of Twitter followers. Buckley has 37,000 ---- not amazing, but not bad. If it's a freelance gig, it's an OK deal for The Athletic.

 

Does anyone know among national writers who has the most? What local really attract an extraordinary amount of followers.

 

That definitely seems to be the case in my market, where quantity far exceeds quality in their hires thus far.

 

Totally agree. It seems like the markets they didn't know who to hired they went out and found someone with a bunch of Twitter followers. Perfect example is the Brewers guy they have. It's too bad they don't have a better writer on that beat with what they're doing this year.

 

What do you mean? National reporters?

In print, I know Maggie Haberman, of the Times, and David Farenthold, of the Post, have around half a million followers.

 

I meant writers who work for a publication/website designed a national audience such as ESPN. Yahoo, etc. rather than a publication which is directed at a local/regional audience. I realize thee lines are increasingly blurred.

 

Woj has 2 million, Shefter has 7 million, but guessing they are huge outliers. PFT has only 1.2 or something and Marc Spears has a half million.

 

Twitter followers definitely play a part in their hiring practices, at least in a lot of cases.