Giants Football Reporter Becomes Latest Casualty Of Media Convergence

Ernie Palladino Is Without A Home After 33 Years

Those of us who have joined the sports reporting arena in the last decade saw the writing on the wall.  Others, who worked in the print media were slow to adapt to the transition of media forms from hard copy to electronic.

I'm not saying Ernie was one of them. He did have a blog and he did use Twitter. His employer, The Journal News - a fixture in the Lower Hudson Valley, is experiencing what many print-centric news providers (newspapers) are these days: dwindling circulation, reduced advertising revenue and massive layoffs.

Ernie was let go by the Journal News this week. That means he won't be at Giants Stadium this year and he won't be providing that veteran insight that we have all come to know and love.

Perhaps he will catch on somewhere else.  Maybe some of these excessed sportswriters can work for Bleacher Report in some capacity.  Then again, maybe its time for sports journalism to keep moving forward.

That's too bad  - for everyone.

As one of the internet's senior blog/writers, I find that the old-school reporters are still the best.  They know how to get the story, get it straight, frame it and produce it in a matter of minutes.  

Most web 'journalists' simply don't have the background. Everything is done remotely and the stories are usually second-hand accounts.  Sure there are reporters who work strictly for the web, but there are few readers who have the ability to separate the  seasoned reporters from the 13-year-old bloggers anymore.

You can thank social media and open-source for that. It has its positives but its negatives are far worse.

The internet reader is more likely to read a piece based on conjecture then they are to read one based in fact.  Its the just the lay of the land.

I would like to see more veterans on sites like Bleacher Report to help raise the bar on web reporting.

John Fennelly is the founder/publisher of blogNYG.com, New York's fastest-growing fan-based blog.