UPDATED JULY 10: Tim Sullivan to Courier-Journal

Re: Eric Crawford, Rick Bozich leaving the Louisville Courier-Journal

I forgot Calkins and I agree he should have made the list. I mentioned Climer and while I agree with Hall and Tramel, I only did big papers. There are a lot of college papers or papers who primarily cover colleges that have signature columnists.

 

Re: Eric Crawford, Rick Bozich leaving the Louisville Courier-Journal

There are so many signature guys who have retired in shame to the Dominican Republic or left for radio, ESPN, SI or any of the national sites in the last five years or so....

Forde
Cleveland
Whitlock
Posnanski
Conlin
Ratto...

I'll keep the list short so my omissions don't become anymore glaringly obvious...

 

Re: Eric Crawford, Rick Bozich leaving the Louisville Courier-Journal

I'm still not clear as to how the station intends to use the columnists. Writing web only columns is a massive waste of that station's resources.

I realize that the C-J is going to a pay wall and the station likely intends a slogan along the lines of WSDB the area's information leader where the news is always free, blah blah blah ...

But if those guys aren't hosting the coach shows, a sports reporter style panel show with guests, preseason specials, in season highlight shows and regular appearances on the morning, noon, 5, 6 and 10 news shows, then the station is throwing money away.

 

Re: Eric Crawford, Rick Bozich leaving the Louisville Courier-Journal

Has it been confirmed that they will just be writing for the station's website and doing nothing on camera?

If that is the case, it is clear the true motivation for the station to hire them was just to hurt the C-J. I'd also hope the columnists signed a contract, because I still don't see where the windfall of revenue from page clicks is going to come from.

 

Re: Eric Crawford, Rick Bozich leaving the Louisville Courier-Journal

Just to update: Tim Sullivan from U-T in San Diego is one of the new columnists in Louisville, says Bozich tweet.

 

Just for the sake of accuracy, I never made an effort to create a following at a local website. Some friends from the Rocky Mountain News created one, and I told them I would post when possible, but wanted (and received) nothing in return because I could not commit to anything on a regular basis due to commitments I had at that time to FOX.com, and Fox Sports Rocky Mountain. My contributions were minimal. The quality of work on that site was very good due to the efforts of Jack Etkin and Steve Foster. As an aside, I did not and do not see me being able to create a following that would have allowed me to create a living by taking the approach.

 

I really believe the role of a columnist has changed drastically. People don't need someone to decipher what they've seen with their own eyes.

 

I would add Steve Buckley (Boston Herald) to the conversation, and for a smaller paper, Steve Solloway (Portland Press Herald) ... and you can chalk me up as a huge Dave Hyde fan ... I read everything by him no matter what he's writing about (even the NBA)

 

Readers don't need columnists who use their jobs mostly to promote themselves as brands and celebrities. Bianchi is a prime example of that.

 

Tell me something I don't know. Tell me a story.

Don't just give me your opinion, do some actual reporting to produce an informed column.

I'll take Harvey Araton:

http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/news/sports/columns/harveyaraton/index.html