Pearlman does preps

The old way is boring and rote. You are not "wrong" about this.

But when it's a full-on beat, and most preps writers across the country are working 3 or 4 different sports, 5 days a week...it's like cooking at home. Are you really bringing your A cooking game every night?

And, as I wrote before, some preps writers can be focused on the scrapbook aspect of the job. The role can attract, as I like to say, "human almanacs." They're parts rules official, part historian, they get off on taking meticulous stats, and they love ratings. And, in some places, that's all part of the beat. It's four stories a week, and keeping track of a whole lot of numbers and names for all-county, all-metro, who signs with which local school, who set the conference record in doubles, etc.

 

I get it to some degree.

To the long-term detriment of the financial model at many publications, there has always been an unusual preference for write-pretty take out stuff than the nuts-and-bolts stuff readers need to know and probably, on some level, want to know.

This preps story eschews the typical ham-and-egg model that preps writers have been trained to follow - for some good and some bad reasons - in favor of flourishes that, generally speaking, most writers have convinced themselves they're not allowed to use in stories if they come at the expense of the model. I don't know why they convince themselves they can't, but they do, and so it goes.

Having never had some awe for - and thus no consternation toward - longform feature writers or feature writing - I think the longer a story is, the better chance there is to screw it up or be less interesting than a Wikipedia entry about the same person or event - I neither genuflect at that altar nor blame the people good at it for some of their write pretty tendencies. (Blame and finding fault are two different things.) But that tension often exists at the root of the industry. Always has.

Who's the best journalist? Well, obviously the one working at Sports Illustrated or Grantland or ESPN! I've never thought that held true no more than I'd hold Adam Sandler being the best actor out there because he keeps getting great money gigs. But most people do, and thus it informs the criticism of so nice of you to slum with preps for a night, and of course you turned into starry-eyed show.

I liked the copy of the story and that was it. But for some others, there's a certain freight to it.

 

But you still have to serve the readers. And I have no doubt jeff going from where is now back to preps was very difficult. And I understand his approach to it. I just don't think it worked. I'm pretty sure the Tennessean version of jeff wouldn't have written it this way, because he's just a different writer now. And I also think, as someone already pointed out, jeff would find the right voice if he spent some time getting used to the beat again.

 

I have no problem with featurized game stories. For the most part, I like them -- prefer them, even.

This one was just a little bit overdone, that's all.

 

I've covered pros, colleges and preps throughout my 35+ year career. College football for a long, long time. I've found in coming back to preps, if you check your ego at the door, you'll find that covering high schools is a pretty good gig. With more and more pro and college programs cutting access to next to nothing, and particularly college, you'll find the access to high school athletes and coaching refreshing. After all, we're in the storytelling business. There are stories to be told in high school, too.

 

Elliotte, I don't think I'm being overly defensive—at all. I love this dialogue, and find it really interesting and fascinating.

The reason I stopped coming here years ago is because, honestly, it often feels like, if you have established any sort of name in the biz, you can't win. If someone calls your writing shit, and you say, "OK, show me your stuff" you're an overly aggressive asshole who—because he writes books or for ESPN or Yahoo or whatever—is arrogant and demeaning. And if you engage and dig into a conversation, you're being overly sensitive.

I love, love, love talking journalism. Seriously love it.

So ... can't a guy just talk?

 

That's not remotely close to what I said.

 

You have made a career out of writing purposely polarizing stuff, and then you, like clockwork, get worked up when someone criticizes it.

 

Is this true? Holy hell.

 

Man, you sound like my kind of guy. That's always been my sentiment...

I don't think his quoted comment was directed specifically at your comment, but rather was just a general true statement making his point.