First off, I will say that I still love the printed word, just like I love ticket stubs and programs. As the late Jimmy Breslin said, “The beauty of the newspaper is that you never know what you will find when you turn the next page,” and I still believe that. The images and the headlines constantly grab the attention on the printed page.
For me, someone who is also fully adapted to reading on mobile devices or tablets or laptops, I still treasure the time to savor and stretch out the newspaper on a weekend, or the magazine on a plane. It’s just different. It’s also great to have an adaptable touch in both worlds…the world of printed storytelling from the near past, and the ever-evolving world of adaptive device reading where we are going. And for me that’s OK. As Snoop Dogg likes to say, we always have to be evolving. Don’t sit still, be curious learners always reinventing and adapting oneself. It’s the best way to understand relevance and stay relevant yourself.
That being said, it was disappointing to me personally when I read the news…online…that the powers that be at The New York Times had decided to “shut down” the New York Times Sports desk. As colleague and former Times reporter Lynn Zinzer pointed out in her story, this wasn’t surprising to many who followed the slow burn the Times sports section had done in recent years…long on tennis and soccer and hoops and some baseball, short on a host of other stories from the fields and the ice and the court that “The Gray Lady” had brought for years, as the section stopped being a section and went to a few pages in the back of the Business Section or on Sunday’s, the main section. And to be honest I wasn’t sad for the section itself, I was disappointed for the people who I enjoy learning from who still kept the light on…Tyler Kepner and Dave Waldstein, Matt Futterman and Sophan Deb, Ken Belson and young Khris Rim…there was never a story read that didn’t teach or tell me something…and I hope as they find their way to other parts of the paper they will continue to do so.
I also hope whatever this next step is for The Times and Sports, their purchase of The Athletic and all their longer form storytelling gets its due as well. I was told for quite a while that the great divide of the Union…The Times was a union shop, The Athletic is not…kept the two businesses so far apart that a senior editor at The Times told me just a few weeks ago he had never even talked to anyone at The Athletic. Maybe that too will change, and this will morph into something that works for both.
The thing that really has continued to bother me is not the loss of those great printed stories I consume; it was really in the way the whole thing was handled. The Times after all, is a massive communication platform…every day you cannot…cannot…pick up the paper or engage online in ANY section without learning something that you did not know before. Communicating stories to the masses.
And yet, when it was time to make a major announcement, the means of communication by the powers that be, as well as what the plan is going forward, was poor at best. Making matters even more quizzical was Sunday’s full-page ad for The Athletic, along with not one, but TWO stories on the front page of the paper tied to…sports. Not big deal enterprise, but Wimbledon and yes…the growth of cricket in America. Front page, just six days after the world was told that “sports “doesn’t fit the bill anymore. So, which is it?
Hopefully we find out before those still doing the work for the paper in an area that is a multibillion-dollar industry…sports…get put out to pasture even more. The constant roll to make a profit in media continues on without many answers. ESPN may be up for sale, the L.A. Times is sliding back its coverage and trying to spin it one way or another, the NY Times is disbanding sports…Sports Illustrated (yes I still subscribe to the monthly print magazine)is well, a licensing business more thana storytelling platform now…and we look to the heavens and wonder why things are changing and what is being sacrificed in the name of quality.
Then again for all the outrage that was voiced last week, I looked to find one person under 40 who was disappointed and worried about the Times announcement. One. Couldn’t really find one. There were thoughtful pieces by Dave Zirin, Robert Lipsyte, Joe Lapointe and others about why this was, or wasn’t a tragedy, but for most people it was noted, nodded to and they moved on consuming news in whatever fashion they usually did. Another great irony is that as this news was unfolding, with a bit of a stance being that young people simply don’t consume news in way The Times, at least for sports, has done it, the elite programs for young people…The School of the New York Times…was in the midst of its summer sports business and sports writing programs in Manhattan. Now while to be clear “The School of the NY Times” has little to do with the actual paper…it Iicensed out to a company that does educational programs…it is clear from having taught nd been around the program since its inception that SOMEONE tied to the NY Times on the education side sees “sports” as a viable enterprise…just not to read in the paper in the way it has been.
So where does this leave us, we consumers of all forms of media and exceptional storytelling? First it again reminds us that adaptability is so key in whatever business we are in. Traditional as a stand alone does not work. Second, it reminds us that even at the highest levels of brands, the changing tide of the media business is still hyper volatile. Third, it reminds us that even with the greatest of storytellers, sometimes the internal communication can get mucked up, and that muck up can cause damage to the brand if it is not being watched carefully.
So, what will we have for The Times in sports going forward? Here’s hoping that what appears in print and online continues to have impact relevance and greatness. The Athletic and its staff does have a large piece of that in the mix, so if that translates over, tremendous. Here is also hoping that the stories that are seen as “enterprise” find their way to the top with the writers being moved off to elsewhere. These people are talented and well-schooled in best practices, and we need more of that. In the end, the brand of The Times is impactful…however what isn’t to be lost with any brand, is that it only stands the test of time because of the people that bring it to life. Many of those people have been battered again this past week, and that is not right.
Whatever comes out the other side, I will keep reading, and hope we can turn a positive page collectively, as consumers and those putting the sentences together.
