Everything I write is terrible

I blame ESPN. Sometimes I read a story and I swear I'm reading an audition for Sportscenter.

Pop culture references and cutesy phrases have their time and place. Dropping a Laguna Beach reference in your 8-inch volleyball prevu probably isn't it.

 

You're right. Sportscenter has become all about the flash without anything to back it up. Everything ESPN does spins off of Sportscenter, so it becomes about what's sexy and sells without any real substance. It spreads downward from the network to the dot com to the magazine to the radio to the public-at-large.

 

I can't even watch Sportscenter anymore especially if Stuart Scott is doing it. He used to be funny, but I stress USED TO. And I don't want these guys telling me somebody is having an off night or this guy is a moron for throwing the wrong cutoff man. Just give me the highlights and let me make my own conclusions about them. Brian Kenny is the worst. I'd like to reach through the TV and strangle him. The only one I enjoy is Scott Van Pelt. He's funny, but at the same time it doesn't seem like he's trying to funny.

ESPN has ruined sports. Everyone is trying to copy them for some reason. Sure they're successful, but not everyone can do what they do.

I agree with a lot of you here. Sometimes a 14-inch gamer is just that. Nothing spectacular, nothing shitty just another a gamer. No big deal. Everything can't win the Pulitzer. And the 8-1-1 theory is glorious. That's how I feel about most of my stuff.

 

Didn't you get the memo? Everyone is over getting over Stuart Scott.

Bitching about SportsCenter is SOOO 2005.

 

Clever,

Actually, "Everything I write is terrible" is a very good sentence.

So you've got that and a clever username going for you.

I usually love my stuff when I write it and hate it when I read it in the paper.

 

Amen. Then there's the times when you think something is perfectly fine, only it's shit.

 

Sirs, Madames,

It beggars belief. A guy says: Everything I write is terrible. And you end up blaming ESPN.

YHS, etc

 

To be accurate, we went off on a bit of a tangent (shocking!) and I blamed ESPN for the dropping of pop culture references and overly cutesy crap in stories that has no place for them, something I see in younger, just out of college writers.

It wasn't a response to Mr. CU's question on why he thinks everything he writes is terrible. Unless, of course, he drops 80s sitcom TV show references in his 10-inch softball gamer.

 

Mr ?

Get a grip. Bad writing goes back to Gutenberg.

YHS, etc

 

No doubt.

 

I'm very often my own worst critic. The last few weeks, I've been saying that one of my now former reporters is a better writer than I am and I genuinely believe that. If I told him that, he'd probably shit a brick, but he does a better job of noticing certain details and working them into a story than I do. Having said that, I *still* remember a previous managing editor I had telling me when I initially didn't get the job when I interviewed with him that I should have emphasized my clips more and that they were my biggest asset. A couple of days later, I was hired for that job when one of the people he originally chose didn't work out.

I'd like to think that professional journalism is something akin to professional sports in the sense that a lot of the people at the better papers were the best writers or reporters or editors at their college papers or their high school pubs. I could be wrong, but that's my guess.

 

Gutenburg name dropped Laguna Beach and Family Ties?