Here is a link. I hate to see him go as I liked his stuff. With him and Jackie going, we might be seeing a youth movement at the Globe.

http://shots.bostonsportsmedia.com/2008/04...-gets-nesn-gig/

The same article mentions that Heidi Watney, formerly of KMPH Fox 26 in Visalia, CA, will become the new Tina Cervasio. I just took a gander at her and she resembles CBS's former blonde bombshell Jill Arrington.

FWIW Fox 26 is how I get Fox HD here, Bakersfield's Fox station still hasn't gone HD. I don't watch Fox 26 news ever, so I never saw Heidi work there.

Bob G

I'll miss Gordon, who's been the best and most objective writer at the Globe. I guess that's the way of newspapers, though. We'd better get used to it.

And I saw the note about the new sideline reporter.... Just when I thought that we were going to have an entire season without the inanity of a sideline reporter. Sigh...

I was hoping, too, Anni.

Though apparently the new girl was talking dirty to some high school kids:

. . Watney also had a prior incident at a Fresno High school involving use of in appropriate language in a talk to students for which she was suspended from the station. Details are not readily available through any of our research tools, but the matter was confirmed by a Fresno source familiar with Watney’s run in that market.

This must be really hard on Shaugnessy... any word if theyre going to stay together and try to make it work as a long term relationship?

I did always like Edes, though. Good writer, and very fair. Knew a lot baseball, but sometimes got caught up in old baseball ideas and romantic notions about ballplayers... like his ridiculous love for Alex Gonzalez. The Globe IS getting really thin. Why cant Shaughnessy be the one to go!?

liked Gordon too.
good writer and seemed like a good guy.

The Globe sports section is going downhill fast. I go to ProJo.com these days as my first source of Sox game stories and information, especially Art Martone's excellent SoxBlog.

I agree. Has one person missed the sideline reporter at all this season? We've lost absolutely nothing in the broadcasts. At the very least, I was hoping Kathryn Tappen would get the gig because she can, you know, actually conduct a worthwhile interview.

agree, totally meaningless during the game.

but I think NESN thinks there's a value there having another person to help with pre- and post-game stuff.

On the whole, he was a good reporter and I enjoyed his work on the pre-game shows. However, he did cross the line with respect to Manny Ramirez at times in recent times. A beat reporter should never lose his or her objectivity, at least where his or her feelings towards particular players are concerned, and I think his criticizing Manny for various things was inappropriate.

That said, I wish him the best of luck in his future endeavours.

Scoop on Heidi

I just read this. Wow. So she's blond, looks good in a bikini and knows nothing about sports. Sounds like the perfect qualifications for the sideline reporter in one of the more intelligent fan bases around.

This ought to be fun.

"Manny really hit the ball over that big green wall thingy, didn't he, Don? I bet no one's ever done that before."

I'm late in picking up on this but it's disappointing. Edes struck me as a dogged and fair reporter and I always trusted what he had to say.

Meanwhile, CHB continues to be like a bad case of hemorrhoids. He's annoying and he won't go away.

Got a picture that doesn't require a password? Google images came up empty. Are you sure she comes up empty re sports knowledge? Seems to be a trend to RIFing those types lately.

Last night was Gordon's last night in the pressbox for the Globe. He'll be at Yahoo soon.

Rob Bradford has also left the Herald.

Edes, a Lunenburg guy (I was originally from neighboring Fitchburg) always has been knowledgeable about the game, has seemed fair and was the best writer on the Herald or Globe staffs judging by what I get from their internet sites.

He will be a welcome addition to the Yahoo staff but I will greatly miss his insider information. The cream always rises to the top which is why CHB is stuck at the globe despite his obvious desire to be a bigger fish. I wsh he had gotten his wish and left Edes to report on the Sox.

My best wishes to him on his career. He will be missed.

Signs of the times:

Horse and buggy -----> Automobile

Newspaper-------> Internet

I'm sure they must be paying him more, but is that really a better move for him?

His gig wasn't just with the boring broadsheet, it was also with NESN--a top 2 regional sports network in terms of viewers.

Internet -------> End of english language

Yes.

The worst part is that it's viral. Some spelling and grammatical errors that would never have even crossed my mind as possible alternatives – when I was in third grade, no less – now occasionally creep in if I start typing too fast. I've been infected. Damn the internet.

As for Edes: It's a better move for him because it means he has a job. Maybe a precarious one in its own right. Last year, Yahoo! layed off a bunch of editorial staff. Then a few months ago they started hiring a bunch of people all over again. There's no up and down with newspapers, though. Only down. You would think newspapers might figure out how to get more (financially) out of their online content – especially something like the Globe sports section, which generates just a bit of traffic, don't you think? But they have too much tied up in the old, dying business model. Change is too little, too late.

That's not really surprising, though, when you consider where the talent is going these days. In this case, by "the talent", I mean management talent that is in touch with today's business model and marketing setup for sports information. The people who are or can become the type of managers who are forward-thinking, anticipate trends, and react well to implement change are going to avoid the newspaper business as a whole because of the same skills and insights that would make them perfect to help keep a few of the old guard alive if they were actually running things. The people who could actually do the job are too smart to even go near the job, IMO.

What's interesting in all this is that Edes applied for the buyout that the Globe offered to all staff back in the Spring, but he was turned down because he was "too valuable". The issue is not settled yet, but Edes gave his notice a couple weeks ago and his last day in print was August 2.

I fear we may be seeing the end of the newspaper as we know it. When I was growing up we had morning and evening dailies in my small town. Boston had four major papers, including an evening paper. Newspapers are dying, and WE are kiling them.

I enjoyed reading Gordon Edes. He was fair and he seemed thorough. I probably will check him out on Yahoo, but I have an aversion to internet "news". I find it difficult to consider web-based writers "journalists", just like I cannot consider the vast majority of TV news "journalism".

I want my newspaper, where the focus of the journalist has always been to "get it right". In the wild, wild world of internet "news", the focus is "get it first". If it isn't right, they'll correct it later and they'll think that no one is the wiser. It's going to be a sad day...

Maybe, to some extent. But some of it is also the nature of the big, lumbering beast. With a sizable investment in a certain type of infrastructure, it's difficult to simply adopt a new business model overnight.

I've worked for internet companies in the past (and do some freelance work now). Not on the management side, but I have seen firsthand that there is no shortage of utter and complete morons in management ranks. They can get away with it, though, because they don't have that enormous infrastructure, and they aren't mired in a 100 year old business model. They can screw up, reinvent themselves, get it wrong again, reinvent themselves again, all quickly and cheaply enough to survive.




Your concern about getting it right vs. getting it first is valid.

But otherwise, the newspaper just doesn't fit the modern lifestyle. The mere 40 hour work week is a fantasy for white collar workers (at least the ones I know). People don't even have time to eat breakfast at home before heading to work, let alone crack open the newspaper. Commutes are longer and longer. People in real cities like Boston or DC or NY at least might be able to read the paper on the train - although, even there, tabloids are far more convenient than broadsheets - but in a sprawling west coast suburb like L.A. or Phoenix, forget it. You're in traffic for an hour. People participate in enough non-driving activities while driving without adding "reading the paper" to the list. And the afternoon news? I don't even get to eat dinner until 9 or 10pm most nights. Forget the newspaper.

In a world of poorly written paragraph-long blog entries, the longer, in-depth article still has its place. But even its place is the internet, where it can be read during scattered spare moments in the day. Not a big, unwieldy, messy newspaper.

It would be nice if everyone would slow down a bit. But they don't. So if you do, you get left behind. The newspaper is an anachronism. And it should die, sooner rather than later, so that those resources can be focused on ensuring that the future of journalism isn't solely in the hands of the functionally retarded denizens of the web.

That's my take. I'll be glad to read Edes on Yahoo, rather than syndicated content and hollow musings of former players (as told by ghost writers).

I agree wholeheartedly but, to be fair, many newspapers now practice the "get it right," method as well.

I fear that this generation, that has never known a day without the internet, will not have an understanding of what a true journalist is. The internet provides a vehicle for anyone who wants to put a rumor in play with little regard for whether it is true or not. The most important thing is, as Anni points out, to get the "story," first. So what if that story proves wrong 99.9% of the time. That one time you get it right is enough to establish "journalistic credentials," in this world in which we now live.

The trouble is the old business model doesn't work for newspapers and the new business model does not bring in enough revenue. The people who no longer read papers in print now read them on line, so there's really no drop off there. What's killing newspapers is the difference between newpaper ad revenue v. internet revenue. Simply, print ads generally cost more than web ads. Internet ad revenue is increasing but its nowhere near what is being lost in print ad revenue. I forget what the ratio is, but it is a very big gap.
And when you take into account what is essentially the death of classified advertising, historically the bread and butter of newspapers, due to free sites like craig's list and monster.com, it does not look too good.