Mark Coddington

For virtually every other American old-media company, this decade has been one of collapse, of downsizing, of a steady chipping away of authority. The theme of this decade in news media could easily be Yeats’ line, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”

Yet for ESPN, this has been the decade of expansion, of hegemony, of steadily mounting authority.

As The New York Times’ media critic, David Carr, noted on Friday, this last week has been a rather momentous one in future-of-journalism happenings. That means I’ve got a ton to cover, so I’ll try to keep it digestible for you. (Explanation of what I’m doing, as always, is here.)
— First off, this was the [...]

I’m going to be hitting the road for a week today, so I won’t be able to post my weekly media roundup this weekend. But rather than leave you empty-handed, I thought I’d give you a few of my all-time favorite long-form journalism articles (at least the ones available for free online). As you’ll see, [...]

We’re a little top-heavy this week, but hang in there — you should find some interesting stuff inside. (As always, explanation is here.)
— I’m about a week and a half late by now on the Washington Post’s new social media guidelines, but it dominated discussion this week and commentary is still trickling out about it, [...]

Last week, a familiar sports media storyline played itself out in Michigan. Detroit Free Press columnist Mike Rosenberg and reporter Mark Snyder wrote an investigative piece with details from a half-dozen current and former Michigan football players about practices that (most likely) violated NCAA rules.
A predictable firestorm erupted, with national media taking notice, Michigan coach [...]