Newspapers Keep Making Insanely Bad Decisions

Bad, Bad Ideas: “Hearst Newspapers, owner of the San Francisco Chronicle, made a deal with ‘citizen sportswriters’ business Bleacher Report for some of the news in its sports section. The ‘co-branded’ sports news will appear on the Chronicle’s SFGate web site, along with the web sites of the Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News and the SeattlePI.com web site.” We’ve met at least one of the owners of Bleacher Report. Smart guy. Nice technology platform. But for a newspaper to run garbage from that site alongside actual newspaper articles is a definite sign for the end of days. The general public is not very bright. They cannot discern what is written by “some dope with thoughts” as opposed to a “journalist at a newspaper.” As a rule of thumb, we never visit, read, or link the Bleacher Report. There’s a place for the voice of the fan on a newspaper website – in the comments section. [SF Biz Journal]