Reilly’s departure is a microcosm of what is happening in journalism at large. With the advent of the internet and new media, the old magazine, Sports Illustrated, is having trouble competing with the young and hip ESPN Magazine. As attention spans slow down and irreverent humor becomes more popular than the literary journalism of SI, for example, the magazine, and the industry at last is trying to adjust.

Reaction from journalists at Sports Journalists.com:

Mizzougrad96: A friend at SI told me weeks ago that Reilly has been on the shitlist at SI for a couple years now… They gave him a sweetheart contract several years back to keep him from going to ESPN that pretty much allowed him to do as he pleases, which is exactly what he’s done… They won’t replace him… SI going downhill started when Reilly got the column and got even worse when Rushin’s funny off-beat column became the piece of garbage that it was when they forced him out…

Piotr Rasputin: I do think ESPN the magazine is doing a better job of plucking the next generation for great writers.

Taken as a whole package, though, SI.com has many more throwaway writers and glorified former bloggers than espn.com.

Silentbob: Every time I read posts about Reilly ‘mailing it in” one thought comes to mind: These people have no idea how difficult it is to write a weekly column.

Reilly has produced some duds lately — who hasn’t? — but more often than not his column is a must read. I do agree with the posters who say he tries to be too cute. A clever phrase here and there is fine. A column filled with clever phrases is a writer trying to compensate a lack of something, usually reporting. Reilly is guilty of that once every two or three months….

The Mag has better ideas than SI. Letting athletes do an issue (Leinart on the cover) a while back was brilliant. But the Mag also has a bunch of stupid weekly features. I don’t understand half the stuff they do in the first 10 pages.

What do you think? Will SI get worse? Is Reilly still a good read? Post your opinion in the comment section.

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