New platform, same tendency toward sarcasm

After 20-plus years in newspapers, let's give this internet thing a try

Hey there, it’s your old friend/colleague/relative/vague acquaintance Scott, with the very first post of Unobstructed Views. If you are reading this it’s because you’ve been added to the free subscriber list, because I think you might like it and also because I had your email address. There is probably a way to unsubscribe, but I mean, it’s free, give it a chance.

There is an obvious irony, I admit, in starting a web-based newsletter a few months after getting fired involuntarily separating from your long-time newspaper job as the company tries to save money on labour. It’s a little like getting mauled by a bear and then, weeks later, going to work at a bear sanctuary.

But I miss writing, and this outlet will allow me to scratch that itch. Mostly, I think, I’ll write about sports, which I did for the last decade of 23(ish) years at Postmedia and which remains a great source of interest because sports is not just sports. It’s business, politics, culture and also sometimes holy shit did you see that shot? True story: I had been in discussions about launching a newsletter at my old job, even had a training session on the software program, and the idea was pretty much what I am about to do here. Write two or three times a week for the newsletter, and probably most of those columns would end up in print. Now they will only end up in print if you decided to print them out. (Would not recommend.) That newsletter never launched, due to the complicating factor of finding out one day last summer that I was being dismissed. The idea, though, lives on.

One key wrinkle: The fact that the columns no longer appear in the sports pages of various newspapers means more freedom to stray off that subject area. For a time in my previous working life I was a roving columnist-without-portfolio, writing about politics, television, sports, haircuts, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, you know, the usual stuff. Moving to the sports beat full time was a fun ride, but I did miss being able to pop off about just about anything. I’m looking forward to doing that again. I hope you’ll enjoy reading it.

I’ll also use this site/service/thingy as a home base for links to work that appears elsewhere, in case you would like to be a Scott Stinson completist.

The plan, such as it is, is to write three times a week. Possibly more, maybe less, we’ll see how it goes. I have some flexibility here because of the other part of the plan, which is that this thing, for a while at least, will go out for free.

Thanks for reading.