Why The Input Club's attempt to control longform isn't going to work

I got angry yesterday. This isn't a regular occurrence for me in general, but it's particularly unusual when it comes to sports media; there's plenty of frustration and disappointment in that world, and in discussing it, but there isn't too much that motivates me to outright anger. Yet, Esquire and ESPN The Magazine writer Chris Jones' "In Defence Of Longform" (which really reads like a defence of a specific kind of longform that he practices, a condemnation of all other attempts at the form, and an exclusion of those who aren't already practicing his kind of longform, but we'll get to that) and the subsequent Twitter arguments I had about it ticked me off in a way I hadn't experienced in years. I've been trying to figure out what exactly sparked that anger (after all, surely there are more controversial and more problematic things out there than an argument over longform standards), and I think I now know just why it bothered me so much. The case made by Jones (which was written in the wake of SB Nation running and then pulling a highly-problematic piece on convicted serial rapist Daniel Holtzclaw and then putting their longform program "on temporary hiatus" during the subsequent internal investigation), and by those who took his side, feels like the latest iteration of a highly-problematic subset of media, The Input Club, something that's used to limit the advancement of young writers and try to ensure they play by the conventional rules.

What is The Input Club? Simply, it's the belief that work should be judged not on its intrinsic merits (the output), but on who wrote it, what process they used to write it, and where it was published (input factors). This is something that's been used in the media wars before, and was a key part of traditional journalists' original arguments against bloggers. That war has now been lost, and you won't find many still taking outright shots at blogs and the web (apart from Michael Wilbon, that is), but that doesn't mean the anti-blogger, anti-young journalist sentiments have dried up completely; people have just moved the fight. In this case, thanks to the Holtzclaw story, it's happening over SB Nation Longform, which has produced a variety of incredible pieces. I'd rather read many of those than much of The Input Club's conventional longform, and I'd argue that the site should be judged on its entire body of work rather than just the problematic Holtzclaw story. They shouldn't be told to stay out of longform just because their longform vertical doesn't have the resources of conventional media outlets doing it. In many ways, that argument smacks of those anti-blogger wars, especially when you consider that many of the SBN pieces have been written by younger journalists, some with a blogging background.

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On The Ground: ESPN/Esquire's Chris Jones on his comments at Fast Break

I wrote a pretty in-depth look at context and criticism over at Awful Announcing that was published today. Doing interviews is rewarding, but you often wind up with more material than you can use, and it would seem a particular shame to take anyone out of context in a piece about context. It's also a good chance to show those interested just how the sausage gets made. (Hilariously, the origin of that quote itself is in dispute.) Thus, continuing the On The Ground interview series, I'm using this space to post my questions and the full on-the-record responses I received. First up, my interview with Chris Jones of ESPN The Magazine/Esquire, whose comments as relayed in this piece started this whole thing. I first just asked him if there's additional context I should consider. Here's what he had to say.

Glad you're writing a piece about that night. It was fun.

I'd say, first off, make sure you read the rest of the quotes from me in that story. I think I've been really supportive of young writers and have gone out of my way to provide advice and encouragement. I believe that optimism and open-heartedness are important.

That part of the story you're talking about—and that's not a quote; that's in the writer's voice—came after Akil, one of the other panelists, talked about how your "likability" factor will play a big role in how far you go. I was agreeing with him: Journalism is a people business, built in a lot of ways on connections and relationships. You know that. It's important not only to get your job, of course—because so often, you'll get a break because someone else puts in a good word for you, which has been the case with my own career—but it's just as important once you're in this business. At both of my shops, I work closely and usually one-on-one with my editors, and if either one of us was an asshole, it wouldn't work. There has to be trust and faith and all sorts of good things there.

So if I see a young writer talking shit to veterans, about shops, just generally being cynical and miserable, I'll remember that. I'm hardly a gatekeeper, but if someone did ask me what I thought of someone, and I'd seen them acting like an asshole online, I wouldn't recommend them. (I'm not talking about thoughtful criticism here, by the way; I'm talking about being a snarky jerk, purposeless stuff.) Why would I? Who wants to work with assholes? If two writers were of equal ability, I'd pick the nice guy. The vast majority of people would. So my advice at Fast Break was: Don't be a dick. It is a bad career move. Tell me I suck and I'm an idiot and ESPN or Esquire sucks and then ask me for help getting a gig? Not going to happen. Give me a good reason why it should. This seems like common sense to me.

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Writing, competition, golf and basketball: a response to Chris Jones

I'm really enjoying Esquire writer Chris Jones' Son Of Bold Venture blog and his take on writing. There isn't enough dialogue about the art and importance of writing out there, and Jones adds a lot to the conversation, particularly with his interviews (notable recent ones include ESPN's Wright Thompson, the Boston Globe's Charles P. Pierce and Glenn Stout, series editor of The Best American Sports Writing. With that said, though, I have to take issue with his two most recent posts, on awards and motivation.

To be clear, this isn't to say that Jones is wrong or that his arguments are invalid. Both of those posts deal heavily with his own feelings and his own approach, and that approach has obviously led to a lot of success for him over the years, so it can't be all that bad. It's not necessarily bad advice for young writers, either; everyone's different, and Jones' approach, involving writers "keeping score" and competing will undoubtedly work very well for some people. The only reason I'm writing this is to express my own feelings that while those may be valid ways to succeed as a writer, they aren't the only ways out there. That may not fit with Jones' avowed attraction to black and white, but it's reflective of one of the things I feel most strongly about; the shades of grey.

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Lisa Olson lists all the wrong reasons for FanHouse's end

This sportsjournalism.org piece from Dave Kindred, which relays the thoughts of FanHouse's Lisa Olson on the forthcoming demise of that institution, has been gnawing at me for a few weeks; this is a delayed reaction to it, but I think it's still worth writing about. Kindred's article begins in promising fashion, eviscerating Bleacher Report for the lack of interest they've historically shown towards quality control, and I don't really disagree with the general theory that it would be nice to see quality material rewarded with more pageviews. However, it goes on to arbitrarily draw the line to blast all bloggers, and uses Olsen's words to do so:

She thought of FanHouse that way, a gathering of veterans on a journalistic adventure. "We were all experienced and qualified, not some 25-year-old bloggers," she said. "The motto was, ‘Go, go, go. Grow, grow, grow.' And we did. Then, this. It's devastating."

If you believe Olson, it was the mainstream journalists who made the bold move to jump to FanHouse who were involved in making that site something new and exciting before it was tragically sold by AOL. I don't buy that, though. Yes, FanHouse was making a lot of progress and had some great people, but I think that was as much in spite of the "big names" they recruited as because of them.

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