Miami Herald Loses One … More to Come?
Media Gossip/Musings April 17th. 2008, 2:45pm
Big news in the sports journalism world today – Dan LeBatard, arguably the sports voice of Miami, is taking a one year hiatus from his newspaper duties at the Herald. The paper’s sports editor sent around a memo saying that LeBatard was “taking a leave of absence so that he can have more balance in his life.” The big loss here – besides more columns like this gem, which was one of the great newspaper takedowns in 2007 – are his chats, which are quite spectacular.
We’ve heard that on the heels of the LeBatard “break,” more departures could be looming, and that the paper has offered buyouts to several of its top reporters, such as Linda Robertson, Armando Salguero, Barry Jackson and Michelle Kaufman. Not that it would happen, but how badly would the newspaper be hurting if, in a one month span, five of its top sports writers left the paper?
ESPN’s LeBatard Leaving Sports Column (Daily Pulp via Romenesko)
41 Responses to “Miami Herald Loses One … More to Come?”
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April 17th, 2008 at 2:47 PM
So in other words, he’s pulling a Stephen A. Smith?
I know a lot of people love him, but this guy is a major tool.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:47 PM
wow, excellent picture in the “this gem” link.
i love LeBetard. BAM!!
April 17th, 2008 at 2:47 PM
Another loss for a “dying medium.”
April 17th, 2008 at 2:48 PM
yeah that “gem” was a hottie. The comment board was weak back then
April 17th, 2008 at 2:50 PM
yeah irish. none of those people still comment cuz they are pussies.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:53 PM
Who is gonna be commenter 17 on LeBatard’s column? Costas needs to know!
April 17th, 2008 at 2:55 PM
He’s got a fairly dominant (i would assume) radio show, and he’s done enough good things in his career to land up on a couple shows that, while they have deteriorated, were pretty awesome 4-5 years ago: PTI and the Sports Reporters.
I don’t see how this ‘helps’ the paper at all. Papers are so hard to free up money … you think they’re going to hire 3 people now that his salary is off the books? Of course not.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:56 PM
So are papers going to have to font up or are they just going to have large blank spaces were a peice used to be? Or they could just shrink down to pocket size…
April 17th, 2008 at 2:57 PM
Sports Reporters was good about 15 years ago, and to me PTI with Kornheiser and Wilbon is as good as ever.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:57 PM
I believe Dan has said he wants to cut back on PTI too. I think he only wants to do radio (and whatever book he is going to write).
April 17th, 2008 at 3:00 PM
PTI is still awesome. I don’t like having to wait 15 minutes though for the Big Finish in the middle of Sportscenter.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:00 PM
Sources tell me that he’s taking a break to write a book about Luther Campbell.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:02 PM
LeBetard is one of my favorite columnists, I hope he lands somewhere. He is brave enough to take on and defend un-popular positions and has always been kind enough to return my emails and is one of the only level-headed columnists on the steroid issue and the laughable slant of the coverage.
MikeNYC, its not surprising that you don’t like him, but he is a cuban american in Miami so believe it or not he probably votes Republican.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:03 PM
What’s with the Artie Lang picture?
April 17th, 2008 at 3:04 PM
@pwned
I am sure Mike NYC has changed his stance on LeBatard after hearing of his conservative ways.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:05 PM
Exactly what do newspapers plan on doing after all this wacking? Going the AP, uncredited writers route only? Attempt to hire bloggers into their mainstream world as print journalists? This is going to become like the outsourced weather guy on some of our local news channels where the dude can’t pronounce half of our suburbs correctly. FM radio has done the same thing. Sad.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:05 PM
The Sports Reporters was good before it became “The Mike Lupica, Mitch Albom, and Some Different Black Guy Every Week” show. These guys make me miss Conlin.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:07 PM
John Saunders makes me miss Dick.
Schaap that is.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:07 PM
clown – I wish I was home so I could throw up some links.
Also, doesn’t Campbell have a reality show coming out?
April 17th, 2008 at 3:08 PM
im extremely bored…SLOOOWWW afternoon. id work but im not coming in tomorrow so today is like friday to me.
maybe ill go pull a PSU Pringle and go talk to the hot Russian coworker.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:11 PM
Any ideas on how he’s going to fill his time? Seperate writing project?
@Jay: Actually, I think was the Sports Reporters has really been missing has been Dick Schaap. I don’t think I’ve made a big effort to watch it since he passed.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:11 PM
Can’t have a post about LeBatard without including the BAM Retrospective:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFRayQEGBSA
April 17th, 2008 at 3:12 PM
Speaking of old commenters, whatever happened to “Jay The Most Hated?” That dude cracked me up.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:13 PM
Yes, I base all my opinions re: sports media “personalities” based on their voting record.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:13 PM
Jay stops by every now and again and is still hated because he’s a dick.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:14 PM
… but I like this one better
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3CAyGMC_RM&feature=related
April 17th, 2008 at 3:15 PM
ive been commenting here pretty regularly for awhile and i only remember a few comments by Jay the Most Hated…what was his deal to begin with?
April 17th, 2008 at 3:16 PM
le batard is the best.. people like mike who do nothing but rip him dont deserve to read his columns, which are some of the best out there.. he takes all the stances everyone else is too damn scared to take.. cant wait for the book, should be great.. work it!
April 17th, 2008 at 3:20 PM
Good rundown of your boy here, Cortes.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:20 PM
Jay the Most Hated disappeared right about the time that Jason outed the pythons. It wasn’t a coincidence.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:23 PM
Now if only Lebatard would take a hiatus from PTI, Sports Reporters, etc…
April 17th, 2008 at 3:24 PM
Gansta…Jay showed up on TBL outing day and dropped some racist comments that were actaully erased they were that bad..haven;t seen him since..remember Johhny…that guy was a lunatic..you’d mention Barry Bonds and he would go off
April 17th, 2008 at 3:24 PM
Hef is right. Jay could be a bit of a dick. But he was entertaining, and entertaining goes a long way.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:25 PM
Didn’t know about the scrubbed racist comments. Never mind:)
April 17th, 2008 at 3:25 PM
mike have you ever listened to his radio show? ever emailed him about ANYTHING? he’s a nice dude and hes really smart.. read some of his stuff sometimes instead of that gasbag midget lupica
April 17th, 2008 at 3:32 PM
Is there going to be a moratorium at some point on the TBL bicep joke?
I think it might have been run into the ground, buried, dug up, buried, dug up, buried.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:36 PM
Those belong in the Python Pantheon!
No moratorium! Long live TBL bicep jokes!
April 17th, 2008 at 3:38 PM
How badly hurt would the newspaper be? Probably not very.
Lots of people get all their sports reporting content online now, I doubt there are very many people who subscribe to a newspaper in order to read the sports section. Sure, it’s the first thing we turn to if we have a paper in our hands, but I know I don’t subscribe to any newspapers. Do you?
You’ll notice most of the calls for newspapers being a dead medium seem to come from sports blogs. Guys covering economics don’t think the WSJ is dead. It might actually be beneficial to a newspaper to jettison its highly paid sportswriters who trade on name recognition in favor of anonymous reporters trawling for news content.
April 17th, 2008 at 4:09 PM
I’ve always liked LeBatard. That may be just because I follow Miami sports and was exposed to him a lot, but he always seemed like a straight shooter who took a pretty logical approach to everything. He is also pretty good on PTI and Sports Reporters when he has been on there. He is the only one who can fill in for Tony or Mike on PTI and it not totally suck Donkey Balls.
Also, for the record, Sports Reporters is brutal. It was only good back in the days when Schaap, Kornheiser and Wilbon were on it. Now it’s Mike Lupica screaming over everyone. ug.
April 17th, 2008 at 7:10 PM
What if Tyler Hansbrough were black? Would he still be leaving? What if Michael Beasley were white?
April 21st, 2008 at 7:19 PM
I do wonder what the gameplan is at these papers. Does anybody have any idea what they’re doing? I love the NY Times website (not for their slant), but for the amount of effort they seem to be putting into keeping me entertained. The Tech section, Business, Sports, Arts, they’re all just impeccably maintained. It puts just about everybody else on the web to shame.
Anyway, Mike in NYC, what year did you graduate? I read in here a fair amount, just noticed your logo. Class of ‘02.