Which newspaper columnists will be contributing to the new ESPN New York website?”
tephen A. Smith is the hardest-working man in sports show business. The ubiquitous basketball pundit appears on ESPN about 10 times a day as a regular on the show NBA Fastbreak, a guest commentator on SportsCenter, and a pundit on ESPNEWS. This fall, he was also a judge on the network’s American Idol knockoff, Dream Job. He also has a day job: top sports columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. In a recent Philadelphia magazine profile of Smith, Inquirer sports editor Jim Jenks said the multitasking hadn’t affected his newspaper work. “I don’t know how long this is going to last, but he puts the column first. He knows it gives credibility to what he does on TV.” Jenks offered an example of Smith’s dedication: On the night of the NBA draft, Smith BlackBerryed in his column between television appearances. Oh, Lord. Once upon a time, maybe five years ago, anyone filing a crucial column via a thumbs-only device would have been busted down to covering high-school cross-country meets. Being
ESPN plans to debut its fifth local sports news website, EPSNNewYork.com, on April 2, in time for Opening Day of the Major League Baseball season next week, the sports cable network said Thursday. The Bristol-based network already operates similar local sports news sites in Chicago, Boston, Dallas and Los Angeles. The New York site, like the others, will offer original news, information and other content about major professional and local collegiate sports teams in its area, according to ESPN, which is owned by The Walt Disney Co. Eventually, the site also will cover high school sports. Leon Carter, a former sports editor of The New York Daily News, has been hired as editor of ESPNNewYork.com. The site, which will operate out of ESPN offices on 3rd Avenue in New York, will have six full-time writers. Some have been hired already, according to ESPN spokesman Mike Soltys. ESPN plans to
As in other markets, ESPNNewYork has lured people from the ailing newspaper industry, including the columnist Ian O’Connor from The Record of Bergen County; Wallace Matthews from Newsday to cover the Yankees; and Adam Rubin from The Daily News to cover the Mets. Jane McManus, formerly of the downsized Journal News in New York’s northern suburbs, is the N.F.L. blogger. And two former Newsday columnists, Johnette Howard and Shaun Powell, who were laid off in a 2008 staff purge, will be regular contributors. Rob King, the editor-in-chief of ESPN.com, said the goal of the local sites is to “touch fans with all our resources,” not to damage newspapers. Those resources are immense, letting ESPN route video, audio and written material, and advertising from the mother ship at ESPN.com to the city sites, and cover virtually every team in town, something newspapers have often either struggled to do or chose
