The UT is bringing in a vice president of sports who allegedly will run the sports department with authority for both the online and print product. According to knowledgeable sources, current sports editor Jay Posner, the current boss, will now have someone over him. Before he was sports editor, Posner had a sports media column that sometimes took pokes at stations run by John Lynch, current chief executive of the UT.

According to the good sources, the new sports VP will be Larry Graham, who now is an editor of National Football League coverage for ESPN. According to his résumé, Graham has had many jobs in sports journalism in a short period of time. He has covered sports for the Fayetteville, NC Observer; was assistant sports editor at ThisWeek Community Newspapers in Columbus, Ohio; was a prep sports copy editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; was sports editor of the Lima News (Ohio), and assistant sports editor at the Oshkosh Northwestern (Wisconsin), among other assignments prior to joining ESPN.

Following the highly controversial firing of sports columnist Tim Sullivan, Lynch has allegedly been holding so-called "fireside chats" with newsroom departments, warning employees not to talk to "our enemies," including the Reader, Voice of San Diego, and the 919 Report, a newsletter that goes to more than 500 former and current news employees of the U-T (now called UT). However, my sources say that Lynch's chat with the sports department, which was supposed to come first, has not yet taken place.