An unsurprising study was released today by the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism: Journalists who work online are “more optimistic about the future of their profession than are news people tied to more traditional media platforms.”
That optimism is “at best … an uneasy one.” Well, whatever — we’ll take it.
Also announced today — there’s a pattern here — AOL’s expanding news staff has expanded again with six new hires for their sports site, Fanhouse.com and three new hires for the StyleList.com beauty and style site.
The new Fanhouse staffers are Greg Couch, from the Chicago Sun-Times; Matt Steinmetz of Comcast Sports Net, a former Contra Costa Times NBA writer; Dan Graziano, former national baseball writer for the Newark Star-Ledger; Ed Price, also formerly of the Star-Ledger; and Jeff Fletcher, former baseball writer for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. The sixth is Sunny Wu, who has been an editor at MSNBC.com and ESPN.com.
The three coming to StyleList are Diane Davis, formerly the lifestyles editor at the Associated Press, Sarah Cristobal, the founding editor of Harper’s Bazaar’s online destination, Bazaar.com, and Laura Kenney, previously editorial manager at Sephora.com.
The news releases from AOL played up the contrast between AOL’s growing content and the contraction of its print media competition, and emphasized the company’s goal of becoming the “new mainstream media” as outlets tied to traditional models suffer.
They read, in part:
“We are excited to add more top-notch talent to provide fans with in-depth sports coverage, commentary, and analysis. Our new writers are widely known and respected in sports journalism, and their decision to join FanHouse represents the evolution of high-quality journalism into ‘new-mainstream media’ formats,” said Marty Moe, Senior Vice President, FanHouse, AOL News, AOL Money & Finance, Weblogs and KOL.
“At a time when the print media industry is struggling, MediaGlow and StyleList are committed to bringing our consumers the best in beauty, fashion and style coverage,” said Stephanie Dolgins, Senior Vice President, AOL Women’s & Lifestyle Programming. “The addition of Diane, Sarah and Laura shows our commitment to that passion as well as our goal to further grow our leadership role within the style category.”
