Grantland so far

All afternoon, I was craving ice cream.

As soon as I was done work, I hit the DQ and got a cone. And then all I could think was:

"I got some ice cream, I got some ice cream......"

Posted it on Facebook and it went from there.

"Wanna lick? SIKE!!!!" ;D

 

There's a lot in that post. I agree with some, disagree with some, but this point I think is you finding what you're looking for even if it's not there. This is a shot at LeBron, not Jenkins.

 

This is an issue with modern journalism in general, and Internet journalism in particular -- but I think it's more the result of simple economic pressure rather than generational psychology.

The kind of reporting you describe is costly, risky, and above all, slow. The airless writing you dislike is quicker, cheaper, and easier to tailor to the news cycle -- all of which matters when you're trying to drive traffic and make money.

To wit: why send someone bouncing around the country for a week or two to dig into Jeremy Lin's life story (and maybe come up empty, or get beat by another, better reporter) when you can spend a few days watching him play, then graft a running game diary onto an essay about what it all means?

You'll get the same number of clicks -- maybe more, since in theory you can strike while the news peg iron is hottest -- for far less investment. I'm not sure that what you see as Grantland/Simmons' disdain for "traditional bullshit" isn't simply a sign of our cost-efficient times.

As such, I think you should be more disappointed in modern readers than modern writers.

 

So what you're saying is that Grantland started out good in the beginning, but then it went too far?

 

I'm more disappointed in publishers than either readers or writers, since it's their Lowest Common Denominator economic model that prevails in the commercial space - even as the internet shows again and again how to make niche models work.

Hell, Grantland is a subsidized niche model that aims too wide and too low.

I'd reframe Alma's Grantland complaint thus:

When did all sports writing become memoir?

 

The point, Guy, is that Simmons wouldn't be calling James' interviews "crap" if they showed up in Grantland. It's crap because it's one "those Sports Illustrated interviews."

 

That's an interesting point. Though: (a) not everything at Grantland is memoirish and/or airless (see Weinreb, Bryan Curtis); (b) there's a large, healthy market for memoir and airless writing, both in books and online.

I'm not sure Grantland's aim is too anything. For all I know, they're accomplishing exactly what they want to accomplish and reaching the audience they want to reach. No idea what the numbers or goals are on that front.

It would be nice -- for me as an individual reader -- if Grantland was trying to be the New Yorker of sports journalism. Thing is, I'm just one guy. There isn't a sustainable market for a New Yorker of sports journalism. There wasn't even a market for Play Magazine.

Anyway, my larger point is that I don't think you need to armchair psychoanalyze Simmons to figure out why Grantland's content is what it is. Not that I oppose armchair psychoanalyzing. In fact, I think you could make a case that Alma's post is actually a very clever sendup of an airless Grantland article.

Alma seems rather clever, I wouldn't put that past him.

 

Sports journalism loses too much with enough shortcuts, but how many modern readers notice?

Some publishers are put in a tough spot in that they want to give the readers what they want, but still want to crunch those numbers to make everything work.

Alma knows these differences. So does silent_h and quite a few others on this board. But how many others really know the difference, and would those who do be able to say enough to enforce any sort of positive change?

It bugs some of them, and that's healthy to an extent. But let it fester too long and then the work suffers some more. I believe many modern writers are doing the best they can, but have too much on their plate to do more with some projects. Modern readers love to complain as much as ever, but how many of them actually say something as opposed to just screaming behind their keyboard because those little handles they use absolve them to any accountability?

 

I don't think Grantland's too worried about money when it's hiring a Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic to write about NFL Draft style.

Look at the sheer onslaught of content on the site. There's no way the site's running at anything close to efficiency.

 

Yes. And their reality power rankings are getting very old.

 

Honest answer: The pervasiveness of Internet culture makes us feel both more connected to one another, and more alone. What we're seeing with Grantland, and numerous other niche blogs, is the evolution of that. People don't spend hours on the net because they want a disconnected, objective take on things they're passionate about. They spend hours on Facebook and reading blogs or memoir-style writing because it allows them to feel connected to something, someone. If I may offer a minor defense of the approach, I do get considerable enjoyment out of reading about Jeremy Lin or Ichiro Suzuki through Jay Caspian Kang's examination of what it means to be Asian American. I got a lot more out of the Penn State stuff by reading it through Weinreb's personal lens of what it was like to grow up in Happy Valley. The approach is, of course, imperfect. And it can be a little lazy, no question. But we've become detached enough from the athletes on the field -- by their contempt for media (and by extension, fans), but the ridiculously high salaries and ticket prices, by asinine feuds between cable companies that make it hard to watch the games -- that our shared experiences are frequently more rewarding. I can't relate to, say, Mariano Rivera, but I can have a shared experience with hundreds or thousands of Yankee fans (if I were a Yankee fan) of what it felt like when he came trotting out of the bullpen as Enter Sandman blared to shut the door. Written well enough, that can capture some of what it was like to have been a Yankee fan for the last 15 years. Hell, the most popular threads on this board are often threads were people share personal stories or reflections where the feelings, though different, are ultimately universal. Some writers manage to write about themselves in a way that completely self indulgent and nauseating, and some manage to do it in a way that makes you feel like you're sharing the journey with them. The difference between the two is not something that's easy to explain, but we all know it when we see it.

Part of the reason I scratch my head at some of the Grantland criticism here is that, even if it achieves heights Simmons previously could not have imagined, I'm still not sure it's intending to reach anything beyond sort of a niche audience. Alma pegs it correctly that it's basically McSweeneys or The Believer of sports writing. Eggers made a specific choice, that he'd rather do something he thought was fun and reach a smaller audience of passionate people than to something that made him miserable and reach a huge audience of people only kind of paying attention. Is it a vanity project? Of course. But that doesn't mean much of the content isn't good, or that it needs to hit on the issue of the day. There are, literally, hundreds and hundreds of places to go if you want to read about the Saints bounty stuff. Why ask that Grantland provide that for you? Isn't part of what makes much of modern sports writing kind of boring -- at least to a growing number of readers -- is that readers can increasingly tell when someone is offering a "take" more because they have to write something about the issue de jour instead because it's the way they truly, genuinely feel? A part of me appreciates that Grantland just ignores issues where the writers aren't interested in the subject matter. If I don't like something, I abandon it quickly and feel zero guilt. But I typically read to the end of Grantland pieces (even ones I ultimately think are failures) because at least they don't feel faked to me. I read so many terrible, terrible columns in newspapers that feel like the writer doesn't really believe what's on the page.

As I'm certain you're aware, memoirs are far more popular than modern fiction when it comes to books, and that's why you have people like James Frey. No one cares if what he went through is fiction. But repackage it and suddenly people are swooning over the same material because they feel CONNECTED to it.

People care about Simmons and Klosterman because they see pieces of themselves, or at least the best version of themselves they can dream up, in their stories and their jokes. Not everyone wants that, but a growing number of people want that more than they want Dan Shaughnessy.

Is it lazy and self indulgent to always want to hold up a mirror and see yourself? Absolutely. But that's modern culture. Facebook isn't worth $97 billion simply because the technology is all that impressive. It's because people want to believe their experiences are special. That they're existence -- and their connections -- matter. That's the vehicle sports provides for many people today. Grantland is just tapping into some of that.

 

Double Down, I agree with every word you wrote. I love reading a good personal essay, and I've grown very tired of the traditional format of sports column with no real thought behind it. We need to be bolder. We need to appeal to readers in ways that previous generations of journalists failed to.

The frustration I have with Grantland is that so many of its essays seem on the cusp of that level you're talking about. The most personal of essays often need the most editing because it's difficult to view the topic through the lens of an outsider. And the most personal of essays often are most affecting at shorter lengths. I read the back-page column of The New York Times Magazine every week, regardless of topic. I read it because in about 700 words, the writer exposes themselves through a personal, highly specific story that I can relate to even if my own story has nothing to do with the writer's.

Take this recent one, about an emergency room doctor in Port-au-Prince. I'm not a doctor, and I have no ties to Haiti. I'm not a particularly big third-world sympathizer. But the way the piece was written and the power of the anecdote was affecting. I had a lump in my throat.

Grantland doesn't hit that note enough. The editing lags behind the writing, and no one pares down stories. There's an attitude among Internet writers that a lack of space limitation is a reason to ramble. You see it in the newspaper industry, too. We'll often have to cut a 1,500-word feature to 1,000 words for the print edition, but our boss will ask that we restore those 500 cut words for the Web. Why? The story often reads better when it's tightened, if the story is tightened well.

The back-page column of The New York Times Magazine is among the most well-edited pieces of journalism I come across. It's a new writer every week, but I know what to expect. I'm rarely let down. With Grantland, the byline is everything. Charles P. Pierce is a genius. Michael Weinreb can spin a yarn. Jay Caspian Kang rambles but often has something worth saying. Bill Barnwell usually doesn't.

McSweeney's doesn't deal in nearly this level of inconsistency. If you're attempting to be a launching pad for a more literate discussion of sports, step one should be hiring editors. Line editors. People who challenge the writers and better the stories. Grantland hasn't done that. It's a site by writers for ... those same writers. It's unflinchingly, abrasively single-minded, and that single mind is a writer who can't stand editing on any level, even if he could use it. Bill Simmons' schtick works for Bill Simmons, but Grantland is proof that the approach isn't for everyone. What hurts most is knowing that there's so much to work with and so few people to work.