The winds of change

One newspaper beat has become like the Jets’ right tackle position.

The winds of change has blown through the Jets’ beat once again. . .

The Wall Street Journal has yet another Jets beat writer.

The new writer is Mike Sielski.

The Journal hasn’t had a sport section for long. It started in 2010.

The first Jets’ beat writer was Kevin Clark. He didn’t even make it to the season. He was moved to the Knicks beat before the 2010 season even started, and was replaced by Scott Cacchiola. Scott wanted out after that one season, and was actually replaced by Sielski briefly in the spring. But Sielski moved on quickly, and the job went to Chris Herring.

Herring actually held the position for the last two years.

Now he’s been moved to the Knicks because Clark is covering the NFL.

And Sielski is back.

Did you get all of that?

The bottom line is this – the Jets’ beat isn’t that desirable.

I know that sounds ridiculous, and a lot of people out there would jump at the opportunity to do that job. I get that.

So I want to make it clear that none of these people deserve a violin serenade because they don’t like covering the Jets.

But the place is such a circus that it can drive a writer batty.

The press room isn’t a pleasant place right now. There is a lot of in-fighting, and various people aren’t even speaking to each other.

Also, Florham Park is a hike for most writers, many of whom who live in New York City, Long Island and Westchester (once again, don’t kill the messenger – I’m not asking for you to shed a tear for these people).

It takes some people a couple of hours to get to One Jets Drive.

Another issue is there are myriad leaks right now, from the front office, coaching staff and roster; in other words, a lot of unnamed people stirring things up.

And when these leaks happen, the other beat writers need to run around chasing their tails, trying to do follow-up on this nonsense.

Now it would be foolish for somebody, who is fed up with the beat, to just walk away from the job.

We all know it’s a tough job market overall, and newspapers have certainly seen better days.

But when you have a chance to move within your own media organization, that is a different story.

So Herring grabbed a chance to move over the Knicks.

So did Newsday’s Rod Boone – I ‘m not sure if all of you were aware of that. Boone left the Jets beat a few months ago, and Kim “K-Mart” Martin is now the Jets’ beat writer for Long Island’s paper.

Boone is now Newsday’s Knicks beat writer.

We have mentioned before that Jenny Vrentas almost left for the NFL Network, but decided to stay put with the Newark Star-Ledger.

And if we thought the Jets’ beat was contentious the last few years, wait until this year when the Jets three-ring circus becomes a four-ring circus with Tebow-Sanchez.

There are going to be fights. You can write that down.

And now Herring won’t have to deal with any of this dysfunction.

July 24, 2012

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