Free Rob Bradford from purgatory

August 15th, 2006 → 7:50 pm @ // No Comments

The Eagle-Tribune is an odd paper: they have an aggressively bad website to go along with some aggresively good reporters. Last year, John Tomase did consistently great work covering the Sox; when he got hammered by readers, as he did last June after a story about Manny Ramirez, he was only getting blamed for what people in the Red Sox’s front office had been saying for weeks. (Are full disclosures required for blogs? If so, full disclosure: I like John. He likes Tenacious D and Arrested Development. And he helped out with my book.)

This year, it’s Rob Bradford who’s constantly getting screwed by the Trib. Bradford’s well sourced, both within the Sox and around the league — his book, Chasing Steinbrenner, is proof positive of that. And since taking over the Sox beat last winter when Tomase headed over to the Herald to cover the Patriots, Bradford’s been breaking more than his fair share of stories. He outlined the Coco Crisp deal back in December, about a month before it happened. He got Damon to talk about the Sox’s new center fielder, got Millar to whine on-the-record about the Red Sox’s lack of loyalty, talked to Bill Morgan after the controversy about the non-physical for Beckett, went down to Florida to talk to John Henry in the middle of Theogate, and had news of Theo returning well before it happened. Of course, there’s no reason you’d know any of this; it was often impossible to find stories on the Trib‘s site even if you knew what you were looking for.

Today, the same day Jackie MacMullen has a nice piece about pitchers tipping pitches, Bradford talks to Javy Lopez about whether hitters might be able to predict what’s coming from Josh Beckett. Don’t go to the Trib‘s site for Bradford’s piece; the biggest chunk that’s freely available is posted on Dirt Dogs. The Eagle-Tribune‘s site lets you read exactly seven words.

More than a decade after the Internet became a regular presence in our lives, there are very few newspapers that have their same-day content behind a subscriber wall. There’s the Wall Street Journal, and the Times puts its columnists behind the wall. Oh, and then there are any number of stories in the Eagle-Tribune. Apparently, it’s such a popular paper it has absolutely no need to draw in readers by showing them what it has to offer.


Post Categories: Eagle-Tribune & Rob Bradford

3 Comments → “Free Rob Bradford from purgatory”


  1. Nordberg

    17 years ago

    Thank you, Seth, for pointing this out.
    I went to the Trib’s Web site today to read the story (EEI had referenced it), got the seven words, then was directed to where I could sign up to read the rest.
    Went there, only tolearn that it would cost me $9.95 A MONTH!!!
    OK, I can read the Globe and Herald for free, but I have to pay to read some suburban daily?
    Get real.
    Sorry, Rob. I want to read it. But I don’t even pay 10 bucks for home delivery.
    If the Globe has any brains (no offense Amelie, you are good), they will hire Bradford to replace Chris Snow.

    Reply

  2. doane

    17 years ago

    I have been a fan of Bradford since last fall when he inexplicably was able to get stories that the Herald and Globe didn’t even know existed. I would try to check the Trib’s site early in the morning to read his articles, but a few times I didnt get a chance until late in the day and noticed that you couldn’t read the article anymore. (This was before Bradford was sucked into the Hell that is EEI’s studio). I emailed the webmaster and got a response the next day saying that they archived the day’s online edition at 2pm, so you would only be able to read that stuff if you had an account, IE you were a subscriber, either paper or online.

    But, Bradford’s popularity increased, EEI got a whiff, and it’s been downhill since then. Now, as you noticed, the Trib requires that you have an account to read pretty much anything worthwhile. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t make me want to read their paper.

    Reply
  3. […] Empower the individual writers. If you look at our own history here at RedMonk, our blogging activity took off precisely at the moment we split our eponymous blog up into individual properties. As I’ve said before, and the history of economics would seem to agree, it’s all about incentive – right now their incentive is little more than a byline. Create a little friendly competition on the staff for whose individual blog is most popular, and see what happens. Certainly seems to be working for the Eagle Tribune (ok, maybe it’s not that simple). […]

    Reply

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