TJ Simers slams rival paper

I'm going to finish with this. And, I'm not defending TJ. I think he has a schtick. And he's a polarizing personality.
But, much like Howard Stern in the mid-90s, people hate him. People like him. They both read him.
As for the business models of websites and the LA Times spinning a slight profit, I'm no longer going to debate it. I have to tread lightly around the subject, and that's no fun for me.

 

But, I'm not going to leave this alone.
Your assertion that I "think of our business merely as a delivery system for whatever poorly assembled widgets we might sell to an easily bamboozled readership" was discerned from three posts on a message board late on a Friday night. First off, you don't know who I am or where I have worked, or whom I've worked with or for.
So, let me be frank. Readers are not "easily bamboozled" any longer. The widgets don't work. That's why I've seen colleague after colleague walk out the door in the last 10 years under the euphemisms of "voluntary and involuntary separation packages." The notion the written word will survive in a daily format is in jeopardy. And the grassroots of the craft remains on life-support. College graduates are not willing to make nothing, 50 miles from nowhere. Corporations recognize journalists, like teachers, will work -- and work hard -- for an ideal. Capitalizing on low wages and outstanding profit margins. And when those profit margins fall under 19-18%, they will depart with the "non-essentials."
This is why Simers works. Is he the best writer? Not a shot. But, he's relevant. He's relevant when an entire section of the paper, our beloved Sports section, is becoming irrelevant. And as our core readership age, so do we. Unless, we find writers who make us relevant.
It won't be the game story. It will be the takeouts, the enterprise and the opinion.

 

Seriously, T.J. Simers has a shtick. Some people like him, some people don't. Is he a prick in public? Maybe. Catch me on a bad day, and I can get pretty shitty with you in a heartbeat.

Jgmacg, you say Simers doesn't write well. That's your opinion, and I'm going to live with that. I like Simers. I think his stuff is funny. You may like a different columnist or a different style. That's fine.

But it's a shtick. That's all it is. It's not meant to be taken seriously. It's supposed to be a light read, something the average fan (not one who sits on press row, for example) can read about their stars. It shows the human side of athletes. Instead of telling me about Jeff Kent and how he's hitting, or how he's reacting to the pressure of the Dodgers in the pennant, T.J. shows me that Kent, who by all accounts is a very serious guy, can take a joke. That he can dish out a joke. That he can be charitable. If I want to read about Kent's batting average, I'll hit the agate page. If I want to see what he did in a game the night before, the gamer's up front. But if I want some light reading, Page 2 is where I go. That's why Page 2's have become such a growing force in newspapers in the last few years. Many more papers (not the big, big, big metros, but the normal-sized metros) are going to a Page 2 format, because it offers the reader something else.

 

Liked this post.

 

Speaking of Howard Stern, Simers reminds me of the scene in Private Parts where they say haters and fans listen to him: "reason most commonly given: I want to see what he'll say next."

It's hard to argue a good segment of Simers' audience doesn't fall in that category. People want to see what he'll say next. Including me.

 

One of the newspaper business' major problems is people who either have short memories or zero knowledge of journalism history. Page 2 will save us? Page 2 has had at least 25 years to save us and failed to do so. Some glass-office dipshit comes up with an idea, pats himself on the back, and never bothers to research whether this brilliant new idea of his has already been tried and failed, and it usually has.

But Simers certainly would know he's not the first Page 2 wiseass to come down the pike. He's old enough and happened to be geographically situated to read a Page 2 wiseass called "Pike's Peak" in The Denver Post in the early 1980s and a column by the same author, Buddy Martin, called "The Nose" a couple years earlier in the New York Daily News' separate "Tonight" afternoon paper. I liked Martin's shtick -- of course I was basically a juvenile when I read it, early 20s -- but it certainly didn't save the two newspapers in which it ran. Tonight folded rather quickly, and The Denver Post wound up being sold to a bottom-feeding sleazeball. It wasn't the fault of Buddy Martin, who is a talented man. But it certainly didn't save journalism, which -- and here's a news flash for you young'uns -- was fretting about becoming extinct even then.

The bean counters would love nothing better than to see people like Simers save journalism because it certainly would be cheaper to hire a dozen wiseasses than it would be to cover 50 towns. But it won't work.

You want to impress people who've been around awhile? Show us something new. Don't show us something old and tell us it's new.

 

Frank? C'mon. Saving Journalism? No one ever said a Page 2 columnist or a Page 2 for that matter would ever "save journalism."
That's a false conclusion and a pulpit press if I've ever read one. We simply need to offer views that a reader can't get by signing on. Whether it's Page 1, Page 2 or Page 14.
(and, you forgot Allan Malamud)

 

I thought of Malamud, but he was a different type than Simers. Buddy Martin was a closer example.

My point is that Page 2 has done nothing for us so far. Why would we expect different results tomorrow?

All these gimmicks do is delay us finding a true solution. The bean counters don't want to hear it because flash is cheaper and faster than substance, but eventually we're going to have to decide that recycling the same bad ideas doesn't work, and that there is no easier, cheaper way to gain readers. We need to cover more news, bottom line.

 

A little louder, please.

 

As a beat guy, Simers was a hard-edged asshole whose shtick didn't work. As a columnist, he still can play the asshole card but because he's softer and writing for laughs, it works. There's a certain brilliance to that transformation and he deserves credit for making it. That said, it's a mistake to try to copy him. Can't be done. Like Murray, Simers has perfect pitch for what he does. If I had a sports section, I'd want him. I'd also want 10 reporters as good at their jobs as he is at his. Shtick, however inspired, whether it's Murray's or Simers's or Red Smith's or Ring Lardner's, is not journalism's lifeblood. News is. Reporters who produce credible, honest, fair news that builds influence and trust are the answers to all journalism questions.

 

I certainly never said Simers is going to save journalism. You know what's going to save journalism? Nothing. We are what we are. Frank, I respect the hell out of you, but there are a lot more smarter people out there than you and me. Sure, there are stopgaps. There are short-term solutions. But journalism's saving is long gone. We're in a different world now than when you were a "young'un."

You have to adapt. You have to become what the reader wants. And you have to realize that the circulation is never going to reach what it used to be. So you try your best. I'm certainly not saying Simers invented the Page 2 column. But it's what he does.

I love it when people rip Page 2 columns, because it's not real journalism. We're still trotting out comics, cross word puzzles and Dear Abby. It's not because it's news. It's because it's what people want. Sure, there are some people who don't want Simers writing a column. But I'd bet there are more who do. And even more who read him even if they don't want him.

Let's not put journalism's life on Simers' shoulder. I think that's a little silly.

 

You said Page 2 is what we need. I say it's been a failure for 25 years and there's no reason to expect it will help us in the future.

As for Simers, I think it's a waste of a great beat writer who used to break lots of news. People can get goofiness anywhere for free, what we have to offer readers that they can't get somewhere else is people who break news.