Comments on: Comment of the Day: newspaper readers don’t want long form stuff

By: foreverchipper10

foreverchipper10 — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 20:23:18 +0000

Yay journalism degrees! (I have a Bachelor’s and Associate’s….so not quite a Master’s)

By: sportsdrenched.com

sportsdrenched.com — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 16:43:21 +0000

Seems to me that there some in the “traditional” media that are still coming to grips with the fact that the internet has allowed the to consumer to more freely choose what they want to read.

I have a scrip to SI and enjoy some of the longer articles that are written there. I don’t get to them every week, but often enough.

I also enjoy the blogs that assimilate information written by beat writers & investigative journalists at more established news outlets. Without the blogs I doubt I would have found them myself.

The one thing that concerns me about this Brave New World is that I question whether some in the general public can tell the difference between a reputable news source, or some jackass like sportsdrenched.com that paid the $17 for a domain name and has no journalistic or writing experience.

By: brian32556

brian32556 — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 16:33:31 +0000

Hey DeFord, turn around is fair play! It was only a generation ago that you and the beat writers were said NOT to be true journalists by the hoity-toity writers of non-sports. Its just evolution.

By: hank10

hank10 — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 15:39:10 +0000

Or as Jimmy Serrano would say: “Relax. Have a cream soda.”

By: churchoftheperpetuallyoutraged

churchoftheperpetuallyoutraged — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 15:08:38 +0000

Only one I know of is amazinavenue which is occasionally linked from the Yankee writers I read. Marchand can be decent, but he’s dragged down by the clown trio of Wally/O’Connor/Parker.

By: gogigantos

gogigantos — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 15:05:19 +0000

Amen to that, and so many more. DeFord should really chill and enjoy the lawn, maybe even share it, have a BBQ with some friends and neighbors,,,,,,

By: hank10

hank10 — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:54:04 +0000

Now get off my lawn so I can re-read the prose of Grantland Rice.

By: gogigantos

gogigantos — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:51:30 +0000

DeFord has long been a “get off my lawn” kind of aged dude. The prose and stories that he produced and I fell in love with are still very much with us.
I really don’t get his grouchy old man stance for many years now. His beloved SI is fine. Maybe he has been bitter since “The National”, which I loved, faded away.
Tugs at my heart a bit to feel that he has grown bitter and cranky when, it seems to me, that sports journalism is healthy and even on the rise. There is more quality, and shit, writing out there than ever before. How can that be a bad thing from his perspective. I love it for sure that there is so so so much quality writing, daily and long form, out there that I don’t really have to read much about the real world.
Frank should be basking in the glow of being one of the early and prominent figures in the sports journalism world. Smile Frank DeFord, the world may be going to hell in bucket, but the world of sports is covered well and literately. You had a hand in making that true. So, chill old man, just taking a short cut across your lawn, eh.

By: sdelmonte

sdelmonte — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:40:03 +0000

I actually like what Andrew Marchand writes, but I am not a Yankees fan. Mets fans are lucky to have Adam Rubin and Mark Simon’s relatively balanced coverage.

But yeah, IIATMS is an amazing blog that even Yankee haters can appreciate. I wish there were a Mets blog as good.

By: churchoftheperpetuallyoutraged

churchoftheperpetuallyoutraged — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:20:52 +0000

Probably because writing is still a meritocracy, at least in the blogosphere. Write good articles, whether long or short, and people will continue to read them. Write a bunch of crap, and people will eventually stop visiting the site.

Same is true with mainstream media. Why read all the negative crap on ESPNNY when there are plenty of yankee-centric blogs that are high on analysis and low on negativity?

By: seeinred87

seeinred87 — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:20:29 +0000

Oh man, that Boogaard article was amazing. I had to choke back tears a couple times. It was nominated for a Pulitzer for feature writing, and it should have won. Robbed blind. I say this only having read the headline for the winning article, and knowing nothing about the other nominees. Still, I demand a recount.

By: sdelmonte

sdelmonte — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:10:57 +0000

The New York Times – which is not like other newspapers, I would say – has done a lot of long form articles even in its sports section. The very well written and gut-wrenching three-part feature on the life and death of hockey player Derek Boogard ran a total of 12 pages. I suspect that their response to the Internet is to offer stories that go way beyond what you can find at the run of the mill websites. I figure they assume that most readers of the Gray Lady will embrace this.

I loved the Boogard feature. I don’t love features on obscure sports that take up three or four pages on a Monday when I really want to read what their beat reporters and columnists have to say about the weekend’s sports. But I understand their rather unique strategy.

By: danaking

danaking — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:10:24 +0000

Good follow-up. There are plenty of places to get in-depth profiles of athletes if one wants to read them. I enjoy this blog (and Pro Hockey Talk) because I can get a digest of a lot of stories I wouldn’t have time to get for myself otherwise. I can then follow links or do searches to find more detail if i want it. Deford makes a good point, though he buried his lede: it’s getting harder for traditional news outlets to do this kind of reporting. That is a problem, though it’s not the problem he seems to want to talk about, so it can be set aside here.

There is plenty of room for both kinds of journalism. This blog and PHT are great additions to be, as I can check the headlines several times a day to see what might interest me enough to do a little digging into. Plus, I like the bits of attitude that get dropped. it’s sports, not the waiting room in a hospice. It should be fun.

By: kayooger

kayooger — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 13:54:22 +0000

Ya know what’s funny? I stopped reading this post because it was too long. And I’ve got a master’s in journalism.

By: The Common Man

The Common Man — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 13:46:51 +0000

“It may not be in daily newspapers, but it’s on the web and on television.”

And on NPR, Frank Deford.