We Interrupt This Train of Thought

For a "breaking" update: Guess what, legacy media is declining in the press box. Full story from today's Wall Street Journal chroncles "the end." The from the lede:

" . . . some games may be chronicled only by wire services, house organs and Web writers watching the games on television."

Welcome to the official website, home of the news coverage.

For better or worse, in this transition period, the only people who can afford to have "beat writers" -- you know, we call them sport contacts -- will be the brands themselves.

As we contemplate the horror that is the end of newspapers, cue Rock Hound:

It's time to embrace the horror

Who are those "Web writers" anyway? Methinks they are the former newspaper beat reporters. The story picks up on a Mark Cuban initiative to have the NBA create and fund a beat writer coop. That sounds a lot like the legislation to allow newspapers to have non-profit status (if you're losing a $1 million a week like the San Fran Chronicle, guess what, you're not a for-profit venture).

There is a sense that all the pillars of the society are in near-panic mode over the loss of the Fourth Estate in its ink-stained visage. Let me posit a counter -- if the US government is granting non-profit status to newspapers, and one of the requirements is that they must give up editorial endorsements in political races, doesn't that violate the First Amendment in that Congress will be making a law that is "abridging the freedom of speech."

And if in that non-profit paper, the NBA's funded writers create coverage on teams. Will the Dallas Mavericks writer rip Cuban when he makes his next referee Tweet?

At that point, is it really an independent newspaper? Or just an advertising vehicle? What is the difference between our own brand vehicle -- the official website -- and these professional league funded or government subsidized publications?

I have no answer here, but they are questions we should consider.

Side note -- looking at the recent U.S. circuit court ruling on what an employer -- in this case a college -- can discipline an employee for -- in the case, a tenured professor -- under an employee's free speech, how much longer can this blog survive?