ON THE DL

Chris Littmann Of The Sporting News Talks Blogs, Tweets, The Worst Job In Sports Media & Being My Boss

Chris Littmann from the Sporting News joins the show to talk about his job, being my boss. Chris is the editor of several of several of Sporting News’ blogs, including The Baseline, First Cuts and The Sporting Blog, the site I am thankful to write for every weekday.

So as is customary with our shows, in addition to asking Chris how he’s doing, I ask him how I’m doing as well.

Chris became the editor of TSB when Chris Mottram left for SB Nation a few months ago. We talk about how his professional life has changed over the last few months, and if he struggles to find the balance between content at the different sites he edits. In other words, how does he decide what plays at TSB and what’s better suited for The Baseline or First Cuts?

When I spoke with Jimmy Traina and Richard Deitsch from Sports Illustrated, the conversation about the balance between print and online was a large part of our discussion. With Littmann’s job, that disparity is even bigger. The Sporting News is one of the old-guard publications in American Sports and really has remained that way throughout the years. So how does he work with the more traditional side of the business? Are they receptive to the silliness on the blogs, or is the company basically two totally separate audiences? (Note: I do love it when a commenter comes in and you can tell they are a Sporting News reader who stumbled into the netherworld of the blogs).

We talked on the show earlier this week about aggregation and copyright infringement, specifically regarding The Washington Post and Gawker. While Chris and I talk about that circumstance, the issue is a concern for everyone on the internet -- how much aggregation is too much? At what point does it become stealing? Chris edits three blogs, and writes for all of them as well, so we discuss his theory on aggregation and what we, as writers, should do to avoid the accusation of stealing.

And how do we balance what to take from a story? If a local story deserves national attention, aren’t we doing a service to the local outlet by excerpting that story? Or are we stealing their pageviews by blockquoting too much? I know this seems really inside baseball, but it’s going to eventually determine fair use and copyright laws for our industry.

Speaking of inside baseball, we go inside baseball to talk about the PED

saga and The List. We talked about this earlier in the week, and linked to both Chris’ article on the matter and my rebuttal. Since he’s on the show, we talk more about the PEDs issue in baseball and give our written debate a voice.

Chris’ point on the matter is that the casual fan is sick of hearing about the steroids and doesn’t care about cleaning up the game that is supposedly already cleaned up with the new testing policies. His concern is by being unable to move past 2003, baseball will lose the fans who only care about 2009.

There’s a whole 12-step program and rehabilitation sub-context to our conversation. It’s interesting that we both thought of the same analogy but came at it from totally different angles. Agree to disagree, I suppose.

We move to the big story of the day, which was the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee from containment in North Korea. We don’t discuss the

diplomacy involved, but do mention that people -- namely my wife and mother-in-law -- think that reporters have no business getting into situations like that, and no reporting is worth risking your life or forcing the United States to trade for your release. Is this what most people think?

Let me be clear when I say that the embedded reporter, and people who investigate wars, international crimes and terrorism, are the toughest and perhaps the most important reporters in the world. Without people like that, with little training in defense and often no weaponry with which to defend, there would be no checks and balances. There would be supervillains.

That said, clearly working sports is not the toughest job in journalism, but we discuss what the toughest job in sports media might be. Chris talks about the pressures for higher ups at big sites like ESPN.com and how to balance what gets covered and what doesn’t on a day-by-day and minute-by-minute basis. He also thinks that the NFL insider, with all the scooping going on for a sport that more people care about than any other in this country, is one of the toughest jobs.

I think it’s the baseball beat writer. Being away from home for half the summer and always working on a strict deadline at night, every night.

And sure, in Philly or Boston or New York it might be interesting and fun, but imagine the guys who cover Kansas City or Pittsburgh every year. Even if the teams quits on its fans in July and August every year, it doesn’t mean the reporters can. Chris echos that sentiment by bringing up the local desk guys, making less money than their friends who work at the mall, and working 80-hour weeks just to get a foot in this business.

What say you? What is the worst job in sports media?

Chris and I discuss the ESPN Twitter situation that happened last night, with the WWL putting the kibosh on some of their talent’s tweets. We discuss the topic today at The Sporting Blog, so click over there to

read more. (Great graphic by Chris for the post).

It leads to a conversation about the merit of Twitter with regard to breaking news, and if Twitter is a linkable and verifiable source for that news. I think we’re all still trying to figure that out.

Last, we talk about First Cuts -- the greatest gig on the internet. Chris writes the site, talking about shoes and video games! The product samples alone makes that job worth it. And yes, I try to finagle a Wii out of this conversation.

Thanks as always for listening.