How Sports Illustrated Nailed A-Rod, And Why It May Not Happen Again
Last month Time Inc. boss Ann Moore made her case for the survival of magazines, and in a broader sense, traditional media: If they don’t make it, who’s going to do the work to get hard-to-find information?
If she’d just waited a few weeks, she could have saved herself some trouble, and simply handed everyone she met a copy of today’s New York Observer, which has a great story about the story behind the Alex Rodriguez/steroids story that her own Sports Illustrated broke on Saturday. Per the Observer’s John Koblin, here’s some of what SI reporter Selena Roberts went through to get the story:
It’s a neat tale, and one the folks at Time Warner (TWX) should be proud of. And it’s a good counterpoint to pundits who assure us that one day soon in the brave new world, old media gatekeepers like SI will be replaced by the collective wisdom of the Web. Because the last time I checked, crowdsourcing didn’t pay for months of reporting, flights to Miami, a team of lawyers, etc.
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