Into the New Age

           Into the New Age

            The media has changed with the introduction of the digital age. News is no longer expected at certain times, but is now expected all the time. Sports news is no different.

            B.J. Schecter, an executive editor at Sports Illustrated, said that SI has been changing from a print company to a digital friendly company. “…obviously digital is a large part of everything that we do from SI.com to mobile to iPad apps,” Schecter said.

            The digital age is not about only staying with what has worked. The digital age is about change and creating new content.

            “We’re constantly looking for new opportunities, new ways to reach our readers and that is happening in the digital phase,” Schecter said.

            Sports Illustrated must be one step ahead if they are to survive. Schecter realizes this. “I would like people to come to SI.com to get their sports news and that’s not the reality,” Schecter said.

            Sports Illustrated is putting resources into new digital content according to Schecter. Sports Illustrated has done what media companies have had to do in order to survive. They have jumped into the new age.

David Britt: When did you get your first job at Sports Illustrated?

BJ Schecter: September of 96.

DB: September of 1996 and what did that job entail?

BJ: I was hired as a reporter/researcher which was mostly fact checking and some reporting and research help on the magazine.

DB: And what is it that you do now at Sports Illustrated?

BJ: I am an executive editor so I oversee all college sports and enterprise and investigative reporting.

DB: How is the process different from what you originally did at Sports Illustrated?

BJ: Well when I first came to SI, we didn’t have the web. We didn’t have a website. And whereas my sole focus was the production of the magazine, you know I spent 98% of my time online or floor managing, multi-platform projects or conceiving multi-platform ideas I spend a lot of time working on investigative work where as I was more support staff now I’m manager, I’m now an editor as opposed to a writer so I’m working directly with our writers and helping better mold our coverage.

DB: And how has SI adapted to the new media world with Twitter, the world wide web, all that.

BJ: Yeah well obviously digital is a large part of everything that we do from SI.com to mobile to iPad apps, tablet apps, so we spend a lot of energy developing things in video. We have a whole video division, we now have a live show that runs from 1:00 to 1:30 Monday to Friday. That has a premium sponsor. We’re starting to get more and more business online. More and more buzz from advertisers that want to be part of digital. So we’re starting the transition from a traditional print company more to a digital media company. Our products that we’re launching, we’re launching different channels, we launched a lifestyle channel. We’re launching the Monday Morning Quarterback which is going to all NFL all the time. We’re constantly looking for new opportunities, new ways to reach our readers and that is happening in the digital phase.

DB: What do you believe is the primary responsibility of Sports Illustrated to its readers?

BJ: Well I think we need to look for them. People are going to get their news in a lot of different ways and I would like people to come to SI.com to get their sports news and that’s not the reality. People get their news in a lot of different ways. ESPN seems to be the default, so we need to find ways to attract readers with our insight, our reporting, our great writing and storytelling, so that is a huge responsibility on our part to live up to our brand and just as important is our journalistic integrity, you know we need to be fair, we need to have good practices, and when people see an SI story, especially an investigative story, know that we went out about it the right way and we were fair. That is also extremely important.

DB: What is that process? What would a writer have to do to get approval for a story?

BJ: Well there’s a lot of different things that happen, depending on the story. First and foremost it must have the approval of an editor and usually more than one editor that is tasked with overseeing sports. For bigger stories it goes higher up the food chain, certainly  if you have a cover package or an investigative story, an enterprise story, it has to be approved by top level editors. This all goes from brainstorming sessions or discussions between writers and editors. All of that collaboration is extremely important.

DB: What is the next step for Sports Illustrated?

BJ: It is a continuation of this transition. From a traditional print company to a digital company. We have to be more and more digitally focused, we have to get people to engage with our products and our stories online and really to increase awareness. A lot of people think SI.com is magazine repurposed where there is no magazine content on our website. So the continuation of doing great original content and attracting readers by giving them some things that are informative and also giving them things that make them want to come back. It is a long, tough process but it is really a large period of transition.

Audio for this interview can be found here