Mizzou beat writer Dave Matter leaves Post-Dispatch; Michelle Smallmon rises at ESPN Radio
Also, "Monday Night Football" will be available to Charter customers even if ESPN blackout continues
Matter, 45, said better hours and less travel were factors in his decision to make the change. He and his wife have three boys ranging in age from 7-13.
“I wasn’t actively looking to leave the Post-Dispatch by any means,” said Matter, who began at MU on Tuesday. “In my mind I thought, ‘Hey, if I ever leave, it would be for something outside of traditional media.
I told myself a couple years ago that if something came up that was somewhat related to media, somewhat related to sports — college sports — that I found appealing, that would be a different lifestyle that I would owe it to my family and myself to listen. Then this kind of came up out of nowhere. ... It unfolded pretty quickly.”
The newspaper business has changed dramatically since Matter got his start at the Columbia Tribune in 1998 while he still was a Mizzou student before being hired full time in 2000, what with demands now to feed the 24-hour news cycle on the paper’s website in addition to the once-a-day print product. Matter relentlessly attacked the beat throughout his tenure.
“The way we do the job is different but the way I approached it on a daily basis never really changed,” he said. “In the back of my mind I always thought, ‘Hey if I wake up one day and I don’t want to do it the same way that’s a sign that it’s time to find something else.’ And I never felt that, I never felt that at all. I only kind of had one speed. This new job as I’ve discovered in two days is a lot of work. It’s just different work, a different pace. A little more regular hours, a little less travel. That was appealing. But still really demanding as far as the intensity. I wasn’t looking to get away from that necessarily.”
“I’m learning on the go,” he said. “Ultimately I will help shape and tell the story of Mizzou athletics but not necessarily in the traditional sense of writing stories about athletes. I’m not going to be writing game stories. I think of it as a media strategist with a lot of different initiatives.”
“This is a huge loss,” Hensley said.
“Dave was all over everything our Mizzou readers needed to know. I could go on and on about Dave and it would be easy to do — every day in every way blanketing Mizzou coverage above and beyond anyone else.
Personally, I think he was/is the best college beat writer in the country. ... He gave us every ounce of what he had to give while we were fortunate enough to have him at the Post-Dispatch.”
