Jemele and Mike

Bomani is the only sports radio guy I listen to. He's very, very good.

I'm not sure I'll enjoy his TV show as much. I have a pretty limited Pablo Torre tolerance. We'll see.

 

Does he make everything about race on the radio too? If so, no thanks, I get enough of that crap from him on TV and in print.

 

All that may be true, but by any objective measure she was one of the top columnists in the country, even if she didn't appeal to your or my particular tastes.

 

By the only subjective measure that matters to me -- my own opinion -- she is not talented, but she checks a lot of boxes. Good for her. Somebody has to fill that role, especially at a place like ESPN.

 

Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh are two of the top political commentators in the country, if you judge by ratings which is a measure of popularity. They are mildly informed, under educated and while often original, they are only original in the sheer lunacy of their statements. Hill is popular if the definition is the number of people who see and hear her. I have never once heard, saw and read anyone who started a conversation with the phrase "Jemlle Hill said/wrote something interesting recently."
And that is the huge problem with sports commentary there are so many people saying the same thing. THey say it loud, they say it often and they say it without nuance. Bomani is fine, but he's offering the same opinion as a multitude of other commentators. Jemelle is fine, but she's not saying anything original. You have dozens of commentators whose background may be in journalism but are not qualified to offer unique and educated opinions on subject matters. They are not in the same class as columnists of old, writing semi-opinion but essentially spot light or news pieces about Yankees/The Bronx Zoo, writing about triple crown horse racing and NFL training camp in the same week.
A good journalist should be able to write a story about nuclear power and advances in refrigerators. But they are not qualified to provide educated opinions on the relative merits of either. Most sports commentators on cable and radio are just regurgitating Vox Populi but stating it as if they are the Oracle of Delphi.

 

my man just bridged ancient Rome AND ancient Greece. Boom!

 

You don't have to read the heiroglyphics to understand that.

Boom! Ancient Egypt!

 

That's not what Pearlman wrote.

 

Hey! I've done this!

In your face, @typefitter!

I'm a good journalist after all!

 

Uhhhh ...

 

What @QYFW means is this:

Your logical fallacy is appeal to authority

 

So getting hired by a top 20 circulation newspaper as a columnist has "nothing to do with her being good?" Because typically, when jobs at such newspapers open up, they receive hundreds of resumes - many from talented writers. So if being good had nothing to do with being hired at a top 20 newspaper, what, pray tell, was the reason she was hired?