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It’s no surprise that Dan Le Batard is leaving ESPN. The news was so inevitable that if Le Batard saw her on a radio recap, her own contrarianism would make her choose a less obvious subject. Have you seen this guys Cris Collinsworth Thing …?
But his gesture is still revealing. When Jemele Hill made the jump to The Batard style on television, she dubbed herself a “former journalist”. Former journalists were stars of the print media. Ten years ago, in a strange twist of fate, they were given the keys to ESPN. Former journalists ran the network; it was their park, their ATM. Not all former journalists have left ESPN for Substack yet. But the release of Le Batard clearly shows that their golden age is over.
Looking back, it may seem obvious that ESPN would turn its creative engines over to print veterans such as Tony and Mike, Michael and Jemele, Dan, Bomani and Pablo, and the cast of Around the horn. At the time, it was not at all obvious. It sounded a little weird, like an inversion of the typical TV hierarchy. That’s part of what made it so exhilarating.
In the 90s, ESPN added late-breaking reporters like Chris Mortensen and Ed Werder. Under the leadership of former magazine editor John Skipper, who became president of ESPN in 2012, the network has hired more columnists. The idea was that their newspaper clippings gave their television opinions credibility and weight. They could flash the names of their old newspapers like a detective flashes a badge.
Hill, who was a Orlando sentinel As a columnist before joining ESPN, a producer once said, “I can’t teach you how to have an opinion. But I can teach you how to be on TV. “So a former journalist was born.
While ESPN filling its day with former writers wasn’t the obvious decision, it wasn’t clear the writers wanted anything to do with ESPN either. “The print people didn’t want to be on TV,” Hill said. “We looked at the people on TV from above. We saw ourselves as real intellectuals and journalists, not as people who were on television.
Over time, printers realized that to make seven digits they had to (a) write the following Moneyball; or (b) find a televised concert less embarrassing than the 11pm sports. “Once people started to understand that with radio and TV you can make a lot of money, that’s what was a game changer,” Hill said. “It’s like, ‘Wait a minute. I can still write, but can I get paid a few thousand dollars more to do television? ” New York Post, Le Batard earned about $ 3 million a year.
ESPN has called some of its former reporters pure assholes. (In such cases, there was a direct correlation with the writer’s desire to present himself as an asshole in print media first.) Despite this, the salaries and reach of former journalists increased massively.
A handful of former journalists have found paradise. They had an ESPN show – usually produced by Erik Rydholm – that was an extension of their personality. Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon had this kind of show. Just like Michael Smith and Hill, at least with Him and his. The Batard could have discovered him in his truest and strangest form.
The Batard made his relationship with his father, Gonzalo (aka Papi), the central vanity of a daily ESPN show. Very questionableis the other the actors were people Le Batard called friends. The philosophy of the radio show Le Batard, as described by television writer Mike Schur, was to “make fun of the concept of sports radio – so that you forever feel bad loving sports radio or thinking it was worth it. The brushstroke of the show to the uninitiated – “You don’t get the show!” – recalled how well Le Batard was doing.
Being a former journalist could be so fun it disguised some things. The first was that TV hosts had the glory of broadcasting opinions with few messy side effects. “The truth is, I didn’t write plays and had to walk into a locker room every day and answer for what I wrote,” Hill said. “I haven’t had to talk to any coach or player.
“Once you get on TV and have so much more distance between the people you’re actually talking about, you become an artist.”
In addition, the old papers of the television hosts were crumbling. Tim Cowlishaw noted that he was beaming at Around the horn of newsroom that has been thinned by layoffs and buyouts. ESPN was no longer just a final, lucrative destination for newspaper editors. He became – thanks to his website, ESPN the magazine, and after that Grantland“One of their rare stable houses.
Then ESPN started to shrink. The decline of the cable model has led to several rounds of layoffs, the most recent of which has claimed Batard producer Chris Cote. (Le Batard, who called the way the network handled the dismissal “the biggest disrespect of my professional career, Gave Cote a new job and paid the salary himself.)
After taking over in 2018, ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro, who may not share Skipper’s interest in print stars, put up guardrails on what his hosts might be talking about. on air. This caused an eruption of Le Batard, who asked why he had to wait for an athlete to have a political opinion before he could have one himself.
There is a story about ESPN and the politics there. There’s also a story about control – a type of control old columnists weren’t used to in their newspapers, let alone ESPN. In August, Le Batard lamented that ESPN cut an hour from its radio show as the sports world dealt with the issues in which it specializes. “Noon Eastern, starting Monday, Mike Greenberg,” he said. “I just want you to absorb this.”
Pitaro insists he values journalism, like Skipper. It is more accurate to say that Pitaro does not give the same value words– and, by extension, the people who write them. Or wrote them. ESPN still offers great forums for former journalists like Tony and Mike, Stephen A. and Woj. But when ESPN seeks credibility and clout, it’s more likely to seek out Peyton Manning than a columnist.
The former journalist’s twilight comes at a horribly ironic moment. The pandemic has added 50 miles per hour to the rate of decline in printing. Writers pivot to Substack. To podcasting. For… well, if you have another idea, be sure to tweet it. Multimedia is no longer the cornerstone of a print career, as was the case for Le Batard; it’s a way to save your career from oblivion. These days a former journalist is what you would call a journalist in need of a job.
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