We’re making a few changes this week to our written content, in the hopes of giving you readers a better experience at The Barking Crow. Before we start throwing new titles at you, though, we felt we should let you know what’s going on:
The Notes Are Getting Shorter
Joe’s Notes and Stu’s Notes aren’t going away. They are, however, changing. Rather than composing a series of blurbs, Joe and Stu will focus each day on one main thought or piece of news, with quicker bullets following. The sections at the bottom dedicated to specific topics—the Cubs, NASCAR, 2019 NIT Champion Shaka Smart—are moving elsewhere.
“Newsletters”
Where are those topics moving? I’m using scare quotes around “newsletters” because these aren’t really newsletters yet, but we’re trying a more newsletter-adjacent style of posts, each focused on a specific topic. For the time being, these are just blog posts, but if this experiment goes well, we’ll make it possible to receive whichever of our newsletters you like directly in your email inbox.
The newsletters will change with the seasons—some will be year-round; some will be season-specific; we’ll add some; I’m sure we’ll take some away—but for the time being, here are the six of them, and what to generally expect from each one:
- Off the Lake: Twice a week (once on Mondays, once on Thursdays or Fridays—depending on the Cubs schedule), Joe Stunardi will discuss Chicago sports. The main focus will be the Cubs.
- BFN: Once a week (Tuesdays, currently), NIT Stu will discuss the Texas Longhorns. This is Bevo’s Fake Nuts, resurrected once again.
- Cyclone State: Once a week (Wednesdays, although the first edition won’t be posted until next week), Joe Stunardi will discuss Iowa State.
- Good Things Shrewing: Once a week (Fridays), I’ll be writing about Notre Dame. This, like BFN, isn’t new, but we plan to make it regular for the first time since last fall.
- Vroom Vroom: Once a week (Thursdays), NIT Stu will be writing about motorsports, primarily NASCAR, IndyCar, and F1.
- Disco Inferno: Once a week (Wednesdays, with the first edition posting later today), NIT Stu will write about Burnley FC and the Ottawa Senators. To our knowledge, Disco Inferno will be the only joint Burnley–Ottawa Senators newsletter on the internet. This is the one we’re most excited to see live.
Again, this isn’t a permanent schedule or even a permanent assortment of newsletters. We’re going to try it out over the month of June and see what we learn.
Other Posts
In conjunction with all of this, we’ll be writing more standalone blog posts. Rather than trying to lump all of each day’s happenings and thoughts into the Notes, we’ll be responding to the world of sports with some flexibility. This is mostly relevant because of our Joe Kelly coverage. Our Joe Kelly coverage isn’t going away just because we don’t have a Joe Kelly newsletter.
Why We’re Doing This
Joe’s Notes and Stu’s Notes became too unwieldy. They were always unwieldy—this is part of why our content has been so sporadic these last few years—but after posting them more consistently in April and May, we realized they were covering too many things and spreading themselves too thin. Examples: Our Cubs coverage within Joe’s Notes was too sparse to make it worthwhile for our Cubs readership to read them every day. Stu’s Notes were sharing too much news, making them less funny than they should be.
In short, then, we’re attempting to give you guys a better experience as readers. We’re hoping that by breaking up our written content into more specific focuses, we’ll increase the quality of work we bring while also making that work easier to consume.
As always, we welcome your feedback. Thank you for being here.
Bark.
