General

Tis the Season for Buyouts, Firings and Closings

Dec 8, 2009, 3:15 PM UTC

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â†µ‘It’s the most wonderful time of the year,’ the classic holiday song goes. ‘It’s the hap-happiest season of all.’ Yet while some of us are skewering the marshmallows for toasting before bundling up to go caroling out in the snow, others are packing up their offices and taking the annual, ‘it’s the end of the year so newspapers have to clean house’ buyout. â†µ

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â†µâ†µPer Joel Sherman of the New York Post, venerable baseball writer Jack Curry of the New York Times is the latest to take a package to get out of town ... or at least out of print. A national baseball writer for The Times, Curry previously covered the Yankees, and even co-authored a NYT bestseller with Derek Jeter at the start of this decade. And we all know what ‘co-authored’ means when someone writes a book with an athlete – I always imagine a player repeatedly tossing the ball of his choice in the air, flat-backed on an old tattered couch, telling story after story while a grizzled sportswriter smacks away at old Remington, ripping out sheet after sheet of re-write trying to chronicle the tales. There’s a cigar involved, and depending on the girth of the scribe, suspenders too. â†µ

â†µâ†µSoon, if Curry will be writing anything, it won’t be attached to the Old Gray Lady. Curry is not alone, it seems, as Times Sports Editor Tom Jolly confirmed that â†µJoe Lapointe is taking the buyout as well. Per his bio on the NYT website, Lapointe, “covers a variety of sports for the Times, including pro football and major league baseball. â†µHe is in his 20th year with The Times.” It’s not hard to see what ‘20th year’ and ‘variety of sports’ adds up to in this climate of editorial downsizing. â†µ

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â†µExpect more sports media departures over the next few weeks – the holiday season is always the toughest for companies facing layoffs and belt tightening. In fact, while we're spreading the holiday gloom, let's point out that longtime Fox Sports Radio host Steve Czaban was let go from the radio group this week. From his personal blog:â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥File this one under “Horrible and Ironic Ways (For Your Radio Show) To Die.”â†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥My contract with Fox Sports Radio has not been renewed. The last day of the “Steve Czaban Show” is scheduled for December 23rd.â†µâ‡¥
â†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥Steven A. Smith will be my permanent replacement. Now, you can chew on that one for a bit.â†µâ‡¥

â†µâ†µCzaban explained that the affiliates considered him ‘too much like Mike and Mike’ which, for FSR, was a bad thing – and patently untrue if you’ve ever listened to the two shows. Czaban will still be hosting his local afternoon show in D.C. on ESPN-sponsored SportsTalk 980.â†µâ†µLast, while we’re sharing bad tidings, let’s make a note of the end of MVN – the “Most Valuable Network” blog coalition. From Evan Brunell:â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥It is with regret that I’m writing to announce that I have made the decision to close down MVN.â†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥There are many factors that led to this decision, and thusly I will not attempt to work through all the factors and the various happenings that led to this decision. I will, instead, simply cite that the biggest motivating factor was (what else?) finances.â†µâ‡¥

â†µâ†µReally try to read Brunell’s post about the downfall of MVN. It’s a cautionary tale of the little engine that could, but got stuck on the tracks because it ran out of steam and didn’t have the money to buy more coal (I hope this analogy holds up, I actually have no idea how trains run). â†µâ†µWe wish him, the MVN blogs that now need a home, and the aforementioned MSMers suddenly cleaning out their desks, good luck this holiday season. â†µ

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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

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