Do we like anybody?

who the fuck is this "tiger" guy?

 

Good post, Cadet, and I especially agree with No. 3.
When I was in J-school, my news writing professor constantly preached about how Woodward and Bernstein were small-time reporters on the city desk late shift until they reported on a break-in at the Watergate hotel. Same professor once gave us an assignment to "dig up dirt" on an assigned public official. The message, to me, was that you can't be a good reporter unless you're looking for conflict or the hidden evil. Positive stories are bad or lame. The "real" reporters are the ones who turn over every rock, looking for the money the 8-year-old cancer patient's parents embezzled from the support fund (instead of doing a story on the 8-year-old cancer patient, of course). You're a nothing unless you're spending 20 hours a day trolling through financial and personnel records of elected officials and the other four writing a scathing expose about the janitorial job the mayor gave his cousin.

Applied to sports, it means we lose sight of the fact that it's damned hard to do what some of these teams and athletes do. We're raised and trained to report on conflict and negativity instead of appreciating and celebrating success.
Rather than point out that Bill Cowher has taken the Steelers to five or six AFC championship games and two Super Bowls -- something few coaches have done -- we play up the fact that he didn't win a Super Bowl until last year.
Tiger wins his third major of the year? Well, he must be slipping. He only won by three strokes, instead of 13.
Randy Johnson is 4-5 in May? Why, he must suck now. Oh, by September he's got 17 wins? Well, the Yankees covered for him by scoring six runs a game. He's still old and slowing down.
How many people have talked and written about hall of famers whose careers somehow aren't successful because they didn't win a title?
Now, I'm not saying we should all break out the happy pills and write that Bill Parcells' farts now smell like a Carolina pine forest, or that rainbows sprouted from Ron and Nicole's heads when OJ lopped them off, or that Leonard Little helped a nun get to heaven when he plowed his Escalade into her in a drunken stupor. And certainly, dealing with douchebag coaches and athletes -- and having them either lie straight to your face or give you the runaround (see McGwire, Mark and Sosa, Sammy) -- will color your worldview a little. A healthy dose of cynicism is a requirement in this business. But it shouldn't be the only thing we employ in our jobs, and it's a shame that a generation of journalists (and probably most future journalists) are trained to do otherwise.

 

we root for stories, not people. and now that sports articles are routinely discussed on television, internet, etc, stories are judged differently. four sports writers yelling at each other on national tv for a half hour don't want to talk about the feel good stuff. and if they do, someone will bring it down for one reason or another

 

Pretty damn good post yourself.

Do we have certain reporters who give certain athletes literary blow jobs? Sure we do. But as often, if not more often, we have other journalists claiming such when the writer delivers a story which is rightfully positive. It has quite a bit to do with machismo.

 

thanks for the lucid post.

 

In my short time in the business this is basically what I have heard from people who have long been in the business.
I guess my response to all of the bitching about low pay, crappy working times and awful benefits is: Get another job. If you hate your present job so much then do something else. Of course all of us wish we had Fridays and Saturdays off, but for me I am a night person and am glad I don't work 9-5 because that would mean I couldn't hang out late.
This post doesn't have much to do with this thread, but the cynicism of this business is fucked up. I know it is how journalists are supposed to act, but seriously, maybe we should just try to enjoy our jobs instead of acting like it is the worst thing in the world.

 

Yeah, I like quite a few people I've met, although many I initially thought highly of eventually let me down, including myself.

Anybody who gives me a straight answer, without cliches, and doesn't talk down to me is certainly appreciated, if not liked....

 

Did you have my journalism professor? Cause he preaced that and made us do those same assignments. In fact, he had two courses that were basically designed to do nothing but dig up dirt on elected officials/people in power.

 

Sirs, Madames,

I like most of the scouts I deal with. (I suppose they've had the ego beaten out of them.)

I like less than half the athletes and coaches I deal with. (I think it's a sport-to-sport thing.)

I like far less than half the media types I deal with (or just avoid).

The pr types I don't hate I pity. (Gotta be awful work most of the time.)

There are a few agents I get along with but I don't trust any of them. (My rule: They can only be trusted if they say something positive about an athlete who is not one of their clients.)

I make an effort to avoid cynicism but sometimes I fail and then I don't even like myself.

YHS, etc

 

go re-read the pierce esquire article (hell, go buy 'sports guy' -- great stuff) it wasn't a rip job, it just showed tiger as a human being. something it seems tiger has decided not to show again since pierce's excellent story