Jay Mariotti resigns

No, what I mean is for Mariotti to say that he's just know realizing the biz is dying (dead?) he sounds out of touch. Maybe he sould be a publisher.

 

I think we can agree it's petty for somebody to say "Newspapers are dying!" as they're packing their desk. If you really believed that, you'd have said so when you were still cashing checks from one.

 

Sometimes the "Eureka!" moment hits you in different ways.

Seeing nobody reading a newspaper at an airport or on a subway is one.

Having the journalists working alongside you all filing for Web sites is another.

And sometimes, well, the paycheck is just nice.

 

a) Mariotti did just sign that contract extension, so he could have just cruised and cheated the paper while plowing his energies into ESPN and radio gigs. He shows me more, as a stand-up guy, by walking away from serious guaranteed money. Probably saved three or four reporters' or copy editors' jobs by taking his number off the payroll. Or he just padded Michael Cooke's compensation bonus for budget-slashing, and Cooke won't use this to save anyone's job.

b) Let's get over this nonsense about Mariotti's reluctance to show up in the Sox clubhouse to play that night's role of pinata. I've always believed that columnists should go into the clubhouse/locker room to do their reporting, because it makes them better columnists. That's one area where Mariotti deserved failing grades (and less pay) in his performance. But I don't buy the macho thing about putting yourself in the crosshairs for any slug who wants to curse at you or scream at you because of something you wrote. If your next day's or next week's schedule takes you back to the ballpark, great. If you're headed across town for your next column, you aren't bound to swing by 35th and Shields just to let Ozzie or A.J. m.f. you.

c) Mariotti, according to my peeps in Chicagoland, was primarily hated and it wasn't in a Cosell-like love-to-hate-him way. Those people actively avoided buying the Sun-Times, in part because they disliked Mariotti's work.

d) Mike Downey, Rick Morrissey and Rick Telander all are nicer people than Jay Mariotti, based on my contact with and knowledge of each. They are not better newspaper sports columnists. Not even close. (Downey might have been before his semi-unretirement out of L.A. Telander is a better feature writer, by far, IMHO.)

e) As for quitting right after the Olympics, look at it this way: Had he quit right before the Olympics someone would be ripping him for burning a credential on the Sun-Times, which probably wouldn't have been able to replace him on short notice. Should he have waited until he covered the Sox or the Cubs in postseason baseball? Someone would surely rip him for quitting then, after taking a valuable press box seat at such a marvelous event.

 

Hey, I thought I was "board fave JW"!!!

 

The schoolgirl-like silliness of all the Mariotti venom is just such a good color on this Web site.

It's right up there with the people who honestly seem to relish telling us that our industry has one foot in a casket. Whether or not it's true is not the issue; the issue is that people seem to enjoy repeating it like a mantra.

 

For now, anyway

 

The blog everyone hates reposted the link to that Trib column that detailed Mariotti's psychotic ramblings on the White Sox' 2005 season.

http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2005/10/jay_mariottis_y.html


Yeah, I do think a blogger sitting on his couch could come up with a better body of work to chronicle a World Series-winning season.

Jay is severely overestimating his value if he thinks that kind of dreck plays to a national audience.

 

From the S-T editor:

http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=13567


But this line is great:

We wish Jay well and will miss him -- not personally, of course -- but in the sense of noticing he is no longer here, at least for a few days.

 

Just to be clear, I think newspapers should have top-flight columnists (especially those that provoke a response) Marriotti was a Bill O'Reilly-type journo who was able to engage readers. My argument that a "fan" could fill his role wasn't a slight on Marriotti's abilities, but current newspaper management.

 

If Jay's own editor takes a shot at him, I think that SportsJournalists.com can be forgiven its venom.