Sunnier Times in New Mainstream Media

We all have our career flashpoints. Mine came in China, perhaps triggered by a near-death experience while climbing the Great Wall. Or the horror of Bill Plaschke, my TV sparring partner, trying the local delicacy -- animal penis -- and concluding, "I guess I like penis; it's very tasty." Or maybe the sight of Richard M. Daley, mayor of a cold and corrupt Chicago, rushing toward me with a beer at a Beijing function to discuss ... the White Sox?

Whatever, the surreal seeds were in place last August for a professional epiphany -- one that has led me to America Online, where I'm thrilled to launch today as a national sports columnist, commentator and friendly neighborhood rabble-rouser. I should add I'm doubly thrilled to flee the darker corners of the newspaper business, which was reminding me of Marley the dog in his final days.

To wit: A week into the Olympics, I was inside The Water Cube That Phelps Built when a voice-mail popped in. It was from the sports editor of the ailing Chicago Sun-Times, asking me to accommodate the newspaper's Paleozoic-era deadlines by doing something the readers wouldn't appreciate. He wanted me to write one column that had Michael Phelps winning that day's race and another column that had him losing. Both would be filed long before the event, which, in some quarters, would be considered an editorial directive to cook up fiction. I would insert blanks for the finishing times, which a copy editor would fill in, and the bulk would be a lot of jibber-jabber that worked regardless of the result. The editors would decide which column ran based on the outcome. In other words, processed lunch meat for your 50 cents -- and it wasn't the first time. I usually just dealt with these hideous requests. This time, I balked.

"It's not fair to the readers. They're getting stale filler when we have time to give them live substance," I said. What if something dramatic happened that couldn't be conveyed in the prepackaged pap? What if Phelps had to out-touch a Serbian rival at the wall? What if a teammate bailed him out on a relay? What if his Speedo LZR Racer suit fell off? Didn't readers need DETAILS in their morning paper, having seen the race? And wasn't Phelps becoming, um, an American icon, watched by tens of millions each night? If the deadline was 10 p.m. in Chicago and the race would end shortly thereafter, couldn't we push it a few extra minutes? Why give up?

Then I looked across the table. Sitting there, relaxed and ready for action, were staff writers from a leading sports Web site. The columnist was flanked by the Phelps beat writer, and, nearby, an editor was leading the coverage. They had the luxury of analyzing the race, reporting afterward, waiting for the news conference, then writing the hell out of the biggest sports story of 2008. By no coincidence, several top national sites, including AOL Sports, all were read by staggering numbers of eyeballs during the Olympics.

It occurred to me, then and there, that this is why so many print stragglers are wheezing -- and why Internet sites such as the one you're reading constitute the new media mainstream and business model. Failing newspapers are a victim of their own stubbornness, stupidity and lack of foresight in moving their news initiatives to the digital world. The large paper in Chicago, the Tribune, started a digital transition years ago and gave itself a chance. The Sun-Times? The owners became jailbirds, preferring to siphon profits rather than invest in the future.

How do you keep fighting for a place that had stopped fighting? How do you work for any newspaper, save a select few, in 2009?

I resigned after the Games with a calm, professional letter, a decision that came mere months after I'd signed a contract extension. I guess I hurt some feelings. The boys called me a "rat," forgetting those 5,000 columns through the years. They accused me of using Beijing as vacation time ("Hey, kids, let's ditch Hawaii and hang out in a Communist country."). They let a few staff writers, who should focus on doing better work, react with rage reminiscent of Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction." All because I handed back about a million bucks and wanted something more.

Know how nutty it got? AOL rated me 14th on its Most Controversial Sports Figures list, between Chad Ocho Cinco and the Steinbrenners. If my eventual new bosses knew about my torrid fling with Madonna, I'd have cracked the top five, I betcha.

So I'm obviously jacked, at the start of a new year, to hook up with one of the largest and most-read content sites on the Internet. Just because papers are dying doesn't mean writers will die with them.

Many will keep moving onward to potent, ambitious missions such as the one at AOL, which has assembled some of the best in the profession -- columnist Kevin Blackistone, my "Around The Horn" colleague on ESPN; and Lisa Olson, among the elite columnists in New York during her lengthy run at the Daily News. AOL also is fortifying its staff of dedicated writers and bloggers, many of whom, like Michael David Smith, break news on FanHouse and have a solid journalistic base. There will be a dynamic site relaunch on Jan. 13 and, I assume, attention about the continuing crossover of writers from print to cyberspace.

I am here to bring you fiercely independent views about a multi-billion-dollar industry that is more complex than ever and, somehow, more fun than ever. The biggest Internet sites -- most importantly, those unaffiliated with leagues and franchises -- are in position now to do the best unfiltered work. Newspapers? I read where Mark Cuban wants the sports industry to form "a beat-writer cooperative." Yes, he wants leagues to hire the writers who will cover teams daily, a frightening thought. "I know this is in violation of all previous principles of editorial church and state," Cuban wrote, "but then again, watching papers going out of business and not even being able to give themselves away means it's time to start a new branch of that church."

I'd rather not lose my religion, thank you. As it was, I worked at a paper whose editor once called and asked me not to criticize a particular team -- read: owner -- in the wake of a circulation-padding scandal. I ignored him.

Expect me to zealously comment on national issues while spanning the country and world to cover events. Sometimes, my pieces will appear via video, so you get to know me even better than the guy who schools Woody Paige every day on ESPN. The difference is, the column won't go through the 20th-century, ink-and-newsprint monkey grind where you hope the truck driver doesn't stop at Dunkin' Donuts and the delivery boy doesn't hit your dog on the ass. The column simply will go from my computer to an editor to you.

I'm working for a company, AOL, that attracted 54 million unique visitors to its programming content sites in November and ranks fourth in traffic among Internet news sites. As established writers keep moving Web-ward, it will cause consternation among a few members of the sports blogosphere, some of whom think they own the Internet when, as everyone knows, Bill Kurtis owns the Internet. I've never bought into this "mainstream media vs. bloggers" blood war because, in my mind, we're all writers. The best young writers provide compelling takes on sports. The losers wake up each day and attack (choose your ESPN target), an approach that can't attract much audience beyond a few neurotic souls in sports media. Now hear this: I'm a bit too busy to hate bloggers or, really, anyone but terrorists and certain Illinois politicians. I just think they should be writing about Steve Smith, not Stephen A. Smith.

So it's off this week to the BCS title game in Miami, where Blackistone and I will do what we've always done: write 1,000 words about a major event. We'll just send our columns to a different place.

The place to be.