Not to stir the pot

[Frank_Ridgeway]

Pot deserves to be stirred. That's douchebaggery on the part of the writers who circumvented the process, and douchebaggery on the part of CBS Sports changing the rules in midstream. No wonder this business is swirling down the drain. Pretty dishonorable and disgusting.

It is not a drawing in which you've paid $5 for a chance at winning a 2010 Cadillac, and they changed the rules after you bought a ticket. It is a process for filling a job, and those rules always change if the field of candidates is better than expected.

 

[blacktitleist]

Pot deserves to be stirred. That's douchebaggery on the part of the writers who circumvented the process, and douchebaggery on the part of CBS Sports changing the rules in midstream. No wonder this business is swirling down the drain. Pretty dishonorable and disgusting.

It is not a drawing in which you've paid $5 for a chance at winning a 2010 Cadillac, and they changed the rules after you bought a ticket. It is a process for filling a job, and those rules always change if the field of candidates is better than expected.

Bullshirt.

They (the folks at Bleacher Report) could have informed us about this little nugget of info and allowed all of us to just send our work and resumes right to CBS as well. They would send us emails every couple of weeks during the process to let us know what was going on. Why didn't they tell all of us to just do the same?

I dare say that any of us who applied and have written for newspapers would NEVER have published our work on BR had that been the case.

They chose not to so folks would keep bombing their site with their work to make BR look like a legit sports site, and so BR could inform advertisers and such how many site hits they were having and registered writers were onboard.

The process should have been made the same for all of us, regardless of the quality of submissions. The folks at CBS (who made the selections) would have definitely known how to weed out the riff-raff and get the best person available.

And like I said in a previous post....I am very happy for anybody who landed one of these gigs who has been out of work and perhaps was covering a team before for their outlet. I'm very curious to see the final list of 32. I'm guessing there will be some familiar names on it.

 

[The Big Ragu]

blacktitleist, I was the one who asked on the other thread if anyone else wondered if if it was a ploy to load up a website with free content.

Just a few other thoughts. I agree with Ridgeway. When the proposal is "write for free (even if there was no reporting involved) for a few weeks" for a small CHANCE at a low-paying gig, I don't see how you can be indignant over how the process actually played out. You allowed yourself to be exploited (if that is how you feel now). You were a willing participant.

Like Ridgeway, I don't see this as anything more than people having bought lottery tickets to a rigged lottery. It couldn't have been too hard to spot potential warning signals that it wouldn't be a fair lottery, when one of my first thoughts about the whole thing was cynical. If you play the game anyhow, it's on you. Really, the only promise they made you was that they were going to let you write for free--if you willingly would do it. And they did--and you did. It's not necessarily the worst thing. For fans, who might have been blogging anyhow, they hopefully got to do something they enjoyed.

Also, I don't want to be the cranky, old, "maybe there is a lesson in this" guy, mostly because we are talking about $400 a week jobs and I don't want to overstate it. But if you really wanted the job, maybe you should have thought about ways to circumvent the process and get noticed, too. Maybe next time?

People who wait for things to come to them don't get noticed in a crowd. People who are more "aggressive," often do. It's just a fact of life, and one that a lot of people learn through experiences like this. A lot of life is making the rules that work for you, not assuming you know the rules and doing what everyone else is. It's actually a great quality for a reporter. It's hard to say exactly how you know what you should and shouldn't do (and sometimes you will misfire), but some people develop a feel for when they should follow the instructions for the masses and when it's advantageous to be creative and give themselves an edge. Nobody was breaking the law here or doing anything that should have given them reason to not sleep at night, so why not?

You'd be surprised how often the people who don't play by the "rules" get ahead. There is an art to it. You have to know when circumvention is OK and when it will tee someone off. And you need to know subtlety in how you go about it. But for those experienced writers? It was a no brainer. They are professionals. They weren't going to blog for free for weeks. So they mailed some resumes and made some phone calls. If they heard back, great. If not, oh well. I'm not sure why people would be that surprised by how it all went down.

 

[The Big Ragu]

One addendum to my last post. A lot of life is also flat out who you know. I'd also take an educated guess that a lot of those writers who sent resumes directly knew someone at Sportsline from their work travels, who knew they were out of work and sent an e-mail saying, "Hey, I just found out we're taking resumes directly for this gig."

 

[writestuff1]

I was one of those who applied and didn't get the gig. I applied for the position despite the low pay and saw it for what it was - getting free content for Bleacher Report during the application process. I did what was requested of all applicants. With CBS Sports involved, I hoped it would turn out to be more professional. Maybe they did hire some ex-NFL beat writers. I covered home games of the NFL team in my area for more than a decade while working for a small daily about an hour away. I also have a book coming out on the team (granted it's self-published. I think it's well-researched and well-written, plus I'm just trying to make a few bucks in these hard times). It's hard for me to believe someone more qualified got the position I was seeking. I didn't get the gig but was told I was such a "talented" writer that they want me to be a special columnist. They want me to write three columns a week during the season and two a week during the off season. I did their free content b.s. because it was part of the application process but they can take this offer and put it where the sun don't shine. (Note: changed "can't" to "can" in final sentence. Just wanted to clear that up).

 

[mustangj17]

Pot deserves to be stirred. That's douchebaggery on the part of the writers who circumvented the process, and douchebaggery on the part of CBS Sports changing the rules in midstream. No wonder this business is swirling down the drain. Pretty dishonorable and disgusting.

It is not a drawing in which you've paid $5 for a chance at winning a 2010 Cadillac, and they changed the rules after you bought a ticket. It is a process for filling a job, and those rules always change if the field of candidates is better than expected.

Bullshirt.

They (the folks at Bleacher Report) could have informed us about this little nugget of info and allowed all of us to just send our work and resumes right to CBS as well. They would send us emails every couple of weeks during the process to let us know what was going on. Why didn't they tell all of us to just do the same?

I dare say that any of us who applied and have written for newspapers would NEVER have published our work on BR had that been the case.

They chose not to so folks would keep bombing their site with their work to make BR look like a legit sports site, and so BR could inform advertisers and such how many site hits they were having and registered writers were onboard.

The process should have been made the same for all of us, regardless of the quality of submissions. The folks at CBS (who made the selections) would have definitely known how to weed out the riff-raff and get the best person available.

And like I said in a previous post....I am very happy for anybody who landed one of these gigs who has been out of work and perhaps was covering a team before for their outlet. I'm very curious to see the final list of 32. I'm guessing there will be some familiar names on it.

Dude this is the way the world works.

It sucks, but you gotta get over it. If I complained about every job I was screwed over for, or screwed over for a promotion while I was working, I would have like 12 threads out here.

 

[blacktitleist]

Ragu-

I remember you being one of the skeptics in the original thread, and I have no problem with you saying "I told you so."

Yes, I took a risk about publishing free content. But I did so with the expectation that the application process would be the same for everyone. That has been proven to not be the case.

I have no problem with those folks circumventing the process and forwarding their infor directly to CBS. I would have done the same thing on my end had I been networked enough to know someone there.

All B/R had to have done in this instance was to inform folks that if they didn't want to publish content on their site and still go through the application process, send your info to so-and-so at CBS Sports for consideration. They didn't tell us that until after the selection process was finalized that things changed during the process and applications were accepted via CBS without those writers having to publish their work on BR.

BR chose not to do that, out of fear of the backlash I'm sure they would have received. Instead, now they can go and brag about how many new writers they have signed up and how many hits their site gets because of all the submissions.

They can do whatever the heck they want to do to fill those jobs. I just wish they would have been more upfront about the influx of folks who were sending their stuff right to CBS. They had every opportunity to do so.

Now, if I had the choice of what to do in that situation, I would have gladly submitted my work right to CBS without publishing on BR. But I didn't know that was an option, and from some other folks I've been in communication with, they weren't aware of it either.

Just kind of frustrating that we would get emails every week from BR about the process and how it was progressing.

And I wasn't one one of those "wait for things to come to them" kind of guys you mentioned. I was very dilligent with follow up emails and phone conversations with the folks at BR hoping that I would indeed get noticed.

And as for the job itself and the criticism over pay, look at it from my perspective.
In my particular case, I make about $200/week right now doing order intake in addtion to working one night at week at my rag.
I've got two kids to feed and bills to pay, so what wasn't to like about seeing that could land a gig making $400/week covering an NFL team during its season? It was a no-brainer to me. Like I said in the initial post, I knew I would have had an outside shot at best at landing one of these gigs.

And I'm very interested to see who ultimately got them.

As long as it wasn't that Auger fellow who caused such a stir on the first thread about this, I'm ok with the outcome.



And Mustang-
Read my initial post. I'm not complaining about getting screwed over for the job. I was never offered the job and never given any indication that it would be offered to me. I'm upset over how the application process had two different sets of rules that not all of us were aware of.

 

[mustangj17]

Again man, let it go.

I know it's tough and it sucks out there, but basically, this company went with the best people possible.

It's a shirtty situation. Even for the former NFL beat writer who is now a bleacher report writer.

 

[SEeditor]

It is what it is. Nothing will change the fact now.

 

[blacktitleist]

Absolutely right. It's gone, believe me. I've let it go.

Being able to vent about it on here has certainly helped with that.

 

[Miles O'Toole]

I can say with relative certainty that CBS did approach a few journalists on their own that they had targeted in a couple of markets that didn't go through the Bleacher Report process.

 

[tagline]

I also know of people who did not apply but were contacted for these positions.