What Bill Simmonsâ€™ suspension tells us about the changing world of journalism

J Thoendell stashed this in Sports

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-...

ESPN's decision to suspend Bill Simmons, one of its most prominent employees, for his derogatory comments about NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell might seem like a sports story. But, really it's a journalism story -- a telling example of not only how the balance of power is shifting between big, faceless corporate media organizations and the increasingly high-profile individual brands they employ but also of how the definition of what constitutes reporting and journalism is undergoing a huge change.

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<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/09/25/bill-simmons-suspension-highlights-uneasy-15-billion-relationship-between-the-nfl-and-espn/?tid=hp_mm&hpid=z3">ESPN's decision to suspend Bill Simmons</a>, one of its most prominent employees, for his derogatory comments about NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell might seem like a sports story. But, really it's a journalism story -- a telling example of not only how the balance of power is shifting between big, faceless corporate media organizations and the increasingly high-profile individual brands they employ but also of how the definition of what constitutes reporting and journalism is undergoing a huge change.

J Thoendell
11:28 AM Sep 25 2014

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WOW

Jared Sperli
12:25 PM Sep 25 2014

Yow.

As Cindy Boren writes in Early Lead, ESPN's suspension of Simmons was aimed, primarily, at sending the message that "it's the boss."

And, that's true. ESPN is bigger than Simmons in sheer volume. And it's not close. And yet, when it comes to loyalty of viewership/readership and the depth of engagement -- two keys to any form of journalism in this digital pay-as-you-go world -- it's a much more interesting conversation. Take Twitter. ESPN has 11.4 million followers. Simmons has 2.91 million. But, the Simmons followers are drawn to him -- and his brand of journalism -- specifically. They want to know what he thinks about, well, everything. That's a very different -- and, I would argue, more valuable -- following than the larger ESPN horde that is mostly interested in score and injury updates.