Esquire article on how to save sports journalism

i didn't make him out to be a virgin. I made him out to be a dickhead.

Like you.

 

Ahh, resorting to insults because we aren't clever enough to think up a real comeback. I must have been confused by the "it's always easiest for the guys who are not actually doing the work" line. You clearly were talking about his lack of work experience in solving our nation's healthcare problem, not his time as a journalist.

I'm so sorry I proved you wrong. Very dickheaded of me.

 

I'd be very surprised if Klosterman concerned himself with how those newspapers worked beyond whether his copy got changed. I could be wrong, but it's the rare writer that does, and from what I've read, he doesn't strike me as that kind of writer. I think Spaceman's point is valid.

 

I don't know the guy, but I don't think moving up from beat writing to magazine writing to doing basically nothing makes him a dickhead. It makes him successful.

I don't think you can blame a guy if he doesn't give a shit about an industry (your words paraphrased) that pays entry level writers worse than minimum wage for the hours they work, while the most successful columnists are getting mid-career salary levels for someone in any sort of general business job.

 

The point I'm trying to make is that it's unlikely the answer to an industry's problems will come from someone who seems to write off the top of his (albeit clever) head rather than devote some intense study to it.

 

Spojo's Savior:


Uh huh.

 

Agreed. Just to clarify, I'm not the one that started the topic.

He makes some good points and some not so good points. His arguments are mostly aimed at the big business of ESPN and not print journalism.

All I was trying to say is that he's not someone that's trying to save the industry with no experience in print journalism.

 

It will be interesting to see how journalism handles the presidential election next years.

I'd like to see the media quit riding the polls and the video clips and get back to asking hard-hitting questions about serious issues, forcing the candidates to get past the canned stump speeches and actually have to think each day about how they can tackle some serious problems in the United States.

If journalism doesn't force change, and accountability, then who or what will?

It's gonna be an ugly election year, I bet. I'd like to see journalism force the candidates to stay on topic, every day, and find some creative and important solutions to what bugs this country.

This carries over into sports, also. I'm not a Barry Bonds fan, but I think he's carrying too much of the load of the steroids mess because a) the media was happy to ride the coattails of McGwire and Sosa in 1998 because they were loveable stars, and b) the media generally stood by and watched as MLB failed to address the steroids problem because the home runs were helping to pack the parks.

We're not here to be loved. We're here to force the relevant issues to the forefront every day and week, and yet we keep throwing Paris Hilton or Britney Spears back into the mix because "that's what our readers want."

I call bullshit on that. We're here to do a hard job, a thankless job many times, and remind people what should be important in the big picture.

Journalism might be, probably is, the best way to spur constructive thought in the United States today. Light that fire, I say. Push people to think hard about what's really important, not get a buncha focus groups together to ask how we're doing, or what they'd like to see in their paper.

I don't give a hard crap about focus groups, and I don't like the marketeers running journalism like they do today. I'd much rather see newspapers that push people to question the kind of authority we have today, and get some of these jokers out of office and out of the news.

Geez, I'm off on a rambling rant. Hope some of it makes sense. We all have plenty of questions, but should we accept the kind of answers that are doled out these days?

Discuss.

 

When I think of decelerating the presentation of news, I think of all the ridiculous attempts to write about the future---like the media is bored, discontent, with the live event that is happening in front of them or just concluded, and now they have to immediately jump ahead an hour, a month, a year, five years or whatever to conjecture what will happen, what should happen, yada, yada, yada.

Like in the bottom of the 7th inning tonight with the Yankees batting and down 6-3 to the Indians, and all the announcers could talk about was the likelihood of the Yanks having the heart of their lineup batting in the bottom of the ninth. Like, man, the 7th inning was still going on, the 8th inning hadn't started yet, and all these guys could talk about was the bottom of the 9th!!!!! Unbelievable and toitally irrelevenat to what was going on. What if the Yankees had scored six runs in the 7th and/or 8th abnd made moot even the necessity of having a bottom of the ninth. It's that kind of reporting that is just plain nuts and a turn-off. What is so bad about the present that the live media can't stay in it a bit more?

Another example----in 2006, when Tiger won his 12th major, one USA Today columnist did another cliche, kneejerk column proclaiming once again that Tiger is clearly the best golfer ever and that he won't just beat Nicklaus's career majors recrod of 18 but would keep going until at least 21 or 22. We read al this because of one Tiger victory on the heels of a number of majors; misses for him. Why can't we just stop for a few days and talk about Tiger's 12th major title instead of hopping straight over Nos. 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 to get to 18 (and beyond). Why this obsession to talk about Tiger 10 major wins away, when no one has a freakin' clue if he will ever get there? Is this what "being the first to report" has come to? It sucks. This kind of crappy writing show an unwillingness and know-how to stop and give some valid insights and perspective about Tigfer's 12th win and to focus on that.

That's my main beef with sports "journalism" today----always trying to get a handle on the future to the point where the projection and conjecture of what is to come (most noticeable during March Madness, starting with the three-week buildup to Selection Sunday) is most important and the playing of the games themselves is pretty much anticlimatic---like we are supposed to be in a hurry for them to get over with so we can get on to the next thing before it even takes place.

 

Good point, Cargo. The media, which I am a part of, should quit trying to tell us how to think (like them).

Give us the facts and the stories, then ask us what we think. And what we want.

Then go write about that.

 

I think the "article" would have been much better as a stream of consciousness e-mail to an ESPN exec rather than taking up space in a great magazine.

"Dear John Walsh, Here's something I've been bouncing around in my head lately....."