Booted for blogging, ex-Washington Post staffer reacts

May 7, 2008 by

The Drunk Blogger? Not really. More appropriately, a professional newsman on staff at one of the most reputable rags in the field. But Michael Tunison’s secret writing life with the witty—if not a bit profane—NFL blog, Kissing Suzy Kolber, got him booted from his MSM gig.

Last month Tunsion—aka Christmas Ape—came out of Internet anonymity with a KSK entry documenting his inebriation one ancient evening at (gasp) a sports bar. Turns out that was the Washington Post’s cue to fire him, within 48 hours of the post, for “discrediting the publication.”

The Web backlash to WaPo’s knee-jerk reaction was immediate and expected. For HR malpractice. For stodgy new-media ignorance. For axing a potential traffic cow.

But don’t quit your day job, Mike. KSK is of course booming on the heels of the incident, and Tunison is content, sort of, to be uncaged in that space.

We caught up with him over e-mail for a closer look at the whole mess.

OJR: Is there anything defensible about this? Or does a part of you think WaPo did what it had to do?

MT: I think The Post has a right to uphold and enforce whatever stodgy standards of conduct that it deems appropriate. I don’t they would have acted as extremely or as quickly as they did if it wasn’t first picked up by a journalism blog. In that case, the editors probably felt pressure from within the journalism community to cleanse whatever damage they thought I was doing to the Post brand.

OJR: Sounds like it was technically over your post about being drunk at a bar, but that seems a little far-fetched. There’s got to be more to it than that. They say you “discredited” the publication. But what was actually said to you. Anything verbal, or did it all come in memos?

MT: Far-fetched though it may seem, that’s what they said. The day after I put up the outing post, I got a call from the top editor of the Metro section, who was already making clear I was in deep shit and was probably going to be fired. He essentially wanted my reasons for doing so to run by personnel. The next day, I was called back into his office where he laid out the terms of my dismissal. He said the drunk picture coupled with the language while linking to my Post stories violated the paper’s standards.

OJR: Seems to me they would have been a bit better off to give you a slap on the wrist and leverage you for site traffic. Are you at all surprised they couldn’t see it that way?

MT: I figured the penalty would be less severe and there would be more room for discussion. I’m not surprised at all that they couldn’t find something for me to do with The Post’s Web operation. There’s a stunning lack of vision at The Washington Post when it comes to Web-exclusive content. Not to mention that the disconnect between The Post and its website is astounding. The Washington CityPaper did a great piece on that a few months ago. Look at Dan Steinberg’s D.C. Sports Bog. It’s probably the best executed sports blog by a mainstream publication and it’s barely promoted at all by the organization. Sure, one post makes it to page 2 of sports section in the print paper, but log onto The Post’s site and you’d never know it existed. You have to really dig through that unwieldy thing to find it.

OJR: Surely you had to be expecting a knee-jerk reaction of some sort. To what extent did you think it would be feasible for your two writing lives to coexist?

MT: I thought so. As I’ve said on the site, there was no overlap at all between what I did for the paper and the writing at KSK. I also made pains on the revealing post to not actually write out my name and the publication. You could only find those things by visiting The Post and clicking through the links. A Google search of my name or The Washington Post wouldn’t have brought it up, so no one would have discovered it except readers of Kissing Suzy Kolber. Now, readers of KSK and WaPo readers aren’t mutually exclusive, but you can be damn sure KSK readers didn’t think my employment there hurt the paper in any way.

OJR: It sucks to lose the 9 to 5, but how bitter are you, really, considering you come off as the good guy in all this?

MT: I’m a little bitter because I was never really given an opportunity to excel at The Post and as soon as I develop something for myself that garners some success, they find out about it and can me. When I’m doing uninteresting work, I’m going to need a creative outlet on the side.

OJR: How, if at all, are you pursuing other newspaper jobs? Or are you done with MSM? If so, why?

MT: I’m not going after any newspaper jobs at the moment. Partly because I don’t want to but also because they wouldn’t hire me even if I did. Just this past week, the guy who runs The Sporting News’ blog, The Sporting Blog, wanted to bring me on to do some work with them and he was shot down by higher-ups. The reason: because I’m too “controversial” after this firing. I’m sure I’m blackballed from a number of places, probably forever. It’s a little pathetic, really. The mainstream journalism community is so insular and at the same time so terrified. The situation is just going to get worse for them until they reevaluate more than just staff sizes. I have other aspirations, but I’m happy with blogging for now. I make about as much as I did at The Post, which wasn’t much, with writing for a few blogs. I can be happy with that for a bit.

OJR: How has your role on KSK changed through all this? Obviously you have more time to put toward it, but do you feel at all uncaged or liberated in terms of your content?

MT: KSK has never really been a place where I’ve felt limited in terms of what I can say, so the firing doesn’t change much. I have more time and am writing a little more, but it’s still the off-season and there’s only so much to write about. Before coming forward, I had to be more guarded with personal information, which I don’t anymore.

OJR: This is the best PR imaginable for KSK. How has site traffic looked since the coming-out party? Are you guys looking to expand the site out of this?

MT: There was a big initial burst of traffic right after the outing. We had 108,000 unique visitors the day after I got fired. We average around 22,000 or so per day. It’s still been a little higher since than it was before the incident. We probably gained a few readers, but most of the other people were there because it was in the news. As far as expanding, the firing coincided with moving the site to a new address after reaching a contract with a nascent blog network. There are big plans for that network. As far as KSK, there are things we’re planning on adding here and there, like a liveblog of a game every week during the season. Other than that, we’re just keeping with what’s worked for us.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: ,

Want to build your audience? Take a reader to lunch

November 8, 2007 by

John McClain covers the Houston Texans National Football League franchise for the Houston Chronicle. Like a growing number of other sports beat newswriters, McClain maintains a blog on his paper’s website. But McClain’s NFL blogs include much more than notes which couldn’t make the cut for the paper. McClain covers the Texans with text, audio and video entries, engaging his readers in an ongoing conversation, in multiple media.

I first noted McClain’s work in OJR earlier this year, when he posted a hilarious retort to the NFL’s new rule limiting the amount of video of players and coaches that news organizations could use online. I’ve been following McClain’s blog since then and last week, decided to touch base with McClain through an e-mail interview about his blog.

McClain’s no Web-head, blogging and video blogging just for tech’s sake. His print roots run deep, with a strong commitment to connecting with and serving his readers… a commitment that’s led him beyond print and into multimedia publishing.

OJR: To start, at this point, should we be calling you a newspaper columnist or a blogger?

McClain: I cover the Texans and the NFL for the Houston Chronicle. I write blogs and do videos and audio for Chron.com, our website. Our videos are run on YouTube and Brightcove and other sites. I write two columns a week for the Chronicle. I do four blogs a week for Chron.com. I also do six weekly sports talk shows in three cities: Houston, Nashville and Waco. I do a Friday night TV show on the local Fox affiliate, First and Ten with Mark Berman. So what drives the most attention to me? The only thing that can be accurately measured is our website. I had more than 37,000 hits on draft day. I usually get between 75,000 and 100,000 hits a week, depending on how much I do.

OJR: Walk us through how you decide what to report in each medium: in the paper, online in text and online in video.

McClain: On Sunday night after games, I talk with Megan Manfull, who covers the Texans with me, about stories we want to do in the Chronicle, and then I run them by the sports editor. Then, I call Anna-Megan Raley, who does videos with me for Chron.com and talk to her about possible videos for our website. When I write blogs, I just do whatever I feel like, usually based on the Texans because they generate the most interest.

OJR: Who were, or are, your influences as a reporter and columnist?

McClain: When I was growing up in Waco, I read the Waco Tribune-Herald and sports editor Dave Campbell, who had that job for more than 40 years and also founded Texas Football magazine in 1960. He was a god to anyone who loved sports, especially football, in Central Texas. I also read the Dallas Morning News and Dallas Times Herald, mostly about the Cowboys. I followed Bob St. John, Frank Luksa, Blackie Sherrod and Sam Blair. I read The Sporting News each week and loved columnists like Dick Young and Joe Falls.

No one has influenced me as a blogger. I started the first blog at the Chronicle several years ago when I covered the NFL, then stopped when I started covering the Texans in 2004, then started again when I realized how important it was to my bosses at the Chronicle and at Hearst in New York.

OJR: Do you talk about blogging with other members of the Chronicle staff who blog? What about with bloggers outside the Chronicle?

McClain: I talk to other Chronicle writers who blog but seldom to others who blog. We talk about sports and writing and radio and TV but not about blogging. Everyone has a different style of blogging. It’s something we develop on our own. Richard Justice, our lead columnist, and I generate the most hits in sports. Our styles are different. We talk about our blogs, mainly those who write us, quite a bit.

OJR: What tips would you offer other newspaper bloggers looking for ways to get readers more involved in their blogs?

McClain: Treat readers with respect. Ask them questions that make them think. Get them involved in your blog. I run contests and taken readers to lunch so I can meet them. I’ve done this three times, the last time for 15 of them, and will be doing it many more times. Write what they want to read. I cover the NFL, the most popular sport. It’s not hard to get them interested. When I travel, I try to take them with me, as if they’re traveling with me. I tell them about the sights, sounds and people I come in contact with.

OJR: Do you think that it is easier for journalists to blog on sports than on other beats at the paper? Why, or why not?

McClain: Definitely. Everyone’s an expert on sports. Fans think they know more than we do, and many do. They want to be heard. They want their opinions to be shared. They want to get a response to what they write. I give them a forum to do that. As for other non-sports beats, I don’t think everyone thinks he’s an expert on cops, or travel or business or food.

OJR: What’s your favorite part of blogging? Least favorite?

McClain: My favorte part is writing about whatever I want. There are no space limitations. I don’t have to stick to the Texans or the NFL. I can write about the Rockets, Astros or movies. What I like the least is having to read every comment before I post them to make sure they’re not crude or use words we don’t use. Also, some of the readers irritate the hell out of me, but when you let them know it, they’ve got you. You have to have thick skin if you’re going to blog and let readers say just about anything they want.

OJR: Do you think newspapers can hold on to sports fans, or is it ESPN’s destiny to become America’s sports monopoly (and eventual employer of every major current newspaper sports blogger)? What do newspapers need to do?

McClain: The only thing you can’t get on the Internet that you can put in the newspaper is your opinion, your expertise, your credibility. I think newspaper stories should have more opinion. That’s what blogging is; giving opinions. If you develop credibility, readers will come back.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , ,

Passion drives great newspaper Web productions

October 25, 2007 by

On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of leading a session at the American Press Institute‘s seminar “Multi-Platform News: The How-To Guide for Frontline Editors,” in Pomona, Calif.

The API invited the two dozen participants to e-mail me examples of their newspapers’ best recent online work for a 90-minute roundtable discussion. I chose to focus on three projects, which I thought illustrated important lessons for newspaper.com editors.

The Fight for Sugar Hill

Lessons learned:

  • make a strong initial impression
  • embed your interactivity, don’t just link to it
  • get everyone involved, early

    The “>Dallas Morning News’ feature grabs your attention right away, with a powerful visual/verbal combination. The headline promises action, but the image clarifies that this “fight” will be internal. Thus, the stage is set for the News’ three-part series on a pastor’s struggle to turn around a poor housing development in one of Texas’ wealthiest counties.

    Unlike other packages I saw, the News’ presentation embeds interactivity on the main project page. Click the thumbnails below the main art, and each feature loads in the main art’s space. No loading new pages.

    Yes, putting a project together this way is a bear for some shop’s metrics, but I think this design serves the YouTube generation well. Why frustrate a reader by making him or her make an extra click to get to the functionality that a graphic promises?

    Of course, you have to have a wealth of multimedia elements to make such a project deliver for its audience. Eric Nelson, general assignments department head at the Dallas Morning News, wrote that early staff involvement was the key.

    “Everybody had a seat at the table on Day One … reporter, editors, photo, web, videographer, etc. The result was an online package where video, graphics, documents and photos were smoothly integrated.”

    Habs Inside Out

    Lessons learned:

  • You can do much with a simple blog format
  • Overwrite entries for live game blogging
  • Engage the community

    Stu Cowan, sports editor of the Montreal Gazette, credits the Tacoma (Wash.) News Tribune’s Seahawks Insider as the inspiration for Habs Inside Out.

    The Gazette’s blog about the Montreal Canadiens hockey team illustrates the what a newspaper can do with even the relatively simple blog format. The Gazette’s thrown significant staff resources against the project, including a city desk columnist who live-blogs the Habs’ games.

    Unlike many sites’ live game blogs, Habs Inside Out does not post a new entry with each update, creating a reverse chronological mess for a reader who joins the blog mid-game. Instead, Habs Inside Out overwrites the game summary on each update, promoting just as many page reloads, but without the confusion for readers who don’t stay on the site for the whole game. Or the clutter on the site after the game is done.

    Habs Inside Out is connecting with readers, who have begun organizing meets at Canadiens’ games, Cowan said at the API session. He also said that the site links aggressively to others, including junior teams that provide current (and future) NHL players.

    “It is by far the most successful web project we’ve attempted,” wrote Doug Sweet, Gazette national editor. “Montreal is hockey-mad and we’ve managed to fill a void in the local community with this. Fans can argue with our sportswriters and with each other, they can keep up to date with the latest in how the Habs’ world turns and they can become part of a community sharing a group experience. The hits just keep on coming.”

    The Green Guide

    Lessons learned

  • Give the reader a strong, unifying design
  • Use Q&As, second person and web-friendly formats
  • Let your staff follow their passions

    The Calgary Herald’s Green Guide provides readers with news-you-can-use about recycling, conservation and the environment, packaged in a strong, unifying Web design.

    Real Life Editor Valerie Berenyi of the Calgary Herald explained: “Because people are bombarded with conflicting information about how to take action, we seek to break down complex problems into simple steps and suggest practical and innovative ways of incorporating greener living into one’s life — all from a local angle.

    Throughout, the project uses second-person and Q&As to make the site read like a Web-friendly conversation, instead of the dry, textbook-like lecture that it could have become.

    Berenyi credited Herald copy editor Emma Gilchrist with much of the work on the section, explaining at the API session that Gilchrist has a passion for the environment that drove her to go beyond her normal, assigned duties to take on the website responsibilities.

    To that point, in each of these cases, it was staffers’ interest in and passion for their subjects that helped set the stage for the projects’ success. It drove these journalists to fully report their projects and to find and develop skills in the Web tools most appropriate to tell these stories.

    Passion does not equate to shilling. Indeed, the truly passionate can be the most critical of a source, as they care about holding people and institutions to high standards. (Including themselves.)

    Newspapers can compete and win on the Web only when readers perceive that the newsroom’s passion for the communities they cover exceeds that of their online competition. After all, if we journalists do not seem to care about something, why should we expect our readers to?

    • Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , ,
    «Previous Page
    Next Page»