The first journalist to make the move from print to online-only was Mike Monroe. He was ahead of his time.
Few remember Monroe’s stint as the national columnist for Fox Sports, and even fewer probably remember the circumstances of his departure — it came out of nowhere, the folks at Fox believing it was a bad idea to have an online national columnist — a decision that was patently absurd in hindsight, but a decision that Fox has never rectified.
Shortly after his departure from Rupert Murdoch’s empire, Monroe introduced himself at an NBA Finals news conference as “Mike Monroe from Monster dot com.” In the years since, online-only columnists have become the most high-profile members of the profession. Just ask Mark Stein of ESPN.com or Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports.
Now, the guinea pig has a new way to introduce himself: Mike Monroe, winner of the Phil Jasner award.
The Professional Basketball Writers Association announced Sunday that Monroe, national NBA columnist for the San Antonio Express-News, has been named the second winner of the Phil Jasner lifetime achievement award. He will be honored during a San Antonio playoff game.
“Mike Monroe provides each of us with the perfect example of how to do our jobs every day — with equal amounts of dedication and determination and a keen eye for detail,” PBWA president Mary Schmitt Boyer of the Cleveland Plain Dealer said. “I am honored to present this award that recognizes his 30 years of passion and professionalism.”
Monroe, a former PBWA president and vice president, covered his first professional basketball game in 1968 and has been writing about the NBA on a full-time basis since 1985, when The Denver Post made him its Nuggets beat reporter. After three years of writing about the NBA for FoxSports.com, he was hired by the San Antonio Express-News in 2004. He considers it a privilege to have covered some of basketball’s greatest players and to have counted some of the sport’s greatest writers, including Jasner, among his good friends.
The award is named in honor of Jasner, the longtime Sixers beat writer for the Philadelphia Daily News who died in 2010. He won the PBWA’s lifetime achievement award in 2001.
Sam Smith, a former PBWA president whose career as an NBA columnist and author has spanned more than quarter of a century, won the inaugural Phil Jasner Award in 2011.
Monroe was selected by a committee including Boyer, PBWA vice president Josh Robbins and treasurer Rich Dubroff, Smith and former PBWA presidents Steve Aschburner and Doug Smith, who decided to name the organization’s lifetime achievement award in honor of Jasner after his death.