The number of columns he has written the past year that are not utter regurgitations of his 790 show, you could count them on a single hand.

I guess he wants to see if he can syndicate his race-baiting radio schtik.

Newspaper editors all over the country are asleep at the wheel -- or worse, willingly allowing their bosses' pockets to be picked -- by these celeb-journalists who treat the day job as if it is the second or third moonlighting gig. Morale collapses around clowns like this, when those who actually work hard for the newspaper don't reap rewards anywhere close in pay or opportunities. But the editors tolerate it or even get giddy about it, thinking that "synergy" will save their medium.

Stop letting the newspaper get treated like it's a birthright for these guys, who wouldn't have so much appeal to electronic media if not for the paper putting them in a high-profile role to start with. They are stealing your money, crushing camaraderie, morale and teamwork and double- or triple-dipping, when it comes to writing the angles they talk about on TV and radio.

Reason No. 1,049 why newspapers are dying.

I disagree that newspaper columnists going over to TV is killing newspapers.
Many other things may be killing newspapers, but not that.
When it gets to the point where the TV and radio gigs become the priorities, which seems to be pretty much inevitable with these guys, then the quality of the column suffers. That is what hurts the newspaper.
Moving on, and giving the column space to someone who will make it a priority, is doing the newspaper a favor.

Interesting point, Richard, but if Le Batard is truly "gifted" and the best of breed (a highly debatable point) then isn't losing him to the airwaves an overall loss to the newspaper game?

What is happening in sports journalism today is what happened with Washington journalism 30 years ago.
In Washington, around 1980, the networks and later the cable stations began broadcasting a form of argument political journalism. A bombastic host would raise a point, and then the assembled journalists would respnd with equal bombast.
The journalists worked for some of the finest news outlets in the land, such as network news or top magazines. They used their day job to get the credibibility to be on TV, and they were paid for their appearances.
Years ago, organizations such as the Society of Professional Journalists pointed out the danger of such broadcasting:
Reporters shouldn't use their positions to get rich, particularly since journalists were duty-bound to report on how public officials leveraged their government jobs to get rich by getting lucrative speaking fees.
No one listened, and the problem just got worse.
Today, it is impossible to tell who is and who is not a journalist on TV. Is Christ Matthews a journalist? If you say, yes, then what real reporting does he do for his show? What news conferences does he personally attend where he asks questions.
Now, we have the issue of sportswriters, like Dan, seeking riches through an association with a legitimate journalistic outfit.
No reporting is needed for many of the trash-talking broadcast shows. It's just a bunch of guys sitting around shooting the s---, and they're getting paid a lot of money to do so.
Newspaper editors allow this to go on because, frankly, top editors could care less about the sports department -- derided internally as "the toy department."
About the only time a top editor pays attention to sports news in his or her paper is during huge events, like the Super Bowl.
Otherwise, they sit in their offices and fret about how much money sports consumes to cover events, about how much they have to pay their sports columnists (Le Batard by now must be making $250,000 minimum -- about as much as the editor of his paper) and fret about why they missed deadline and therefore delayed the delivery trucks and therefore could cost the paper money in the long run.

to answer your question, no, chris matthews is not a journalist. hell no.

Actually, in a roundabout way the Herald did report it -- in a small item about the bottom of the Business page -- a promo to columnist Cindy Krischer Goodman blogging about LeBatard's decision. Had his photo there.

LeBatard's move from the Miami Hurled to ESPN raises the standards at both places.

suey

Good Riddance to bad trash!!!