Jones/ESPNMAG

Gosh, HB, I don't know how you can't read between the lines and see that's pure praise from "Boom."

I mean, "sell out" is such an obvious indicator of admiration. It's never used to slight somebody at all.

 

Darn it all, maybe I'm just dull and can't comprehend such praise.

 

Seriously, Boom, what?

You haven't raised a single point regarding "craft." You started from the premise that The Jones in ESPN the Magazine was like O'Reilly in the Times. Is that really the comparison you want to draw? Is that really a comment about craft?

You then go on to make several posts that sound suspiciously like you're accusing The Jones of hypocrisy. Yet he still writes for Esquire. He's still one of the best writers in North America. And the piece under discussion in this thread is still a terrific magazine piece by any known standard. In what way did The Jones's craft suffer for having appeared there?

So I fail to see your point.

You may not like ESPN's magazine. The American Society of Magazine Editors in years past has disagreed emphatically with you. They liked it a lot.

You want to talk about the apocalyptic economy in the publishing world? You want to talk about the business of magazines? Or about how we earn a living writing for them?

Fire away.

 

I guess what you are saying is that in a bad economy you can't be as selective in choosing who you will write for.

 

hb you better go back to your Mick Foley books. This discussion is getting away from you.

 

Rather than guess at what I'm saying, why not go back and reread my post. It was quite clear.

 

Not really

 

Then here:

What the fuck is your point?

Really. Honestly. Two days' worth of posts on two separate threads about Jones's appearance in ESPN the Magazine. Including the one you started yesterday that nobody bit on. http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/64964/

What the fuck is your point?

 

"Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!"

 

Boy, that's a REALLY unwise direction for you to go with this.

 

I see both points here.

I see where Boom does not like ESPN the Magazine. It comes off as sophomoric in many of its areas. It's almost like Mad Magazine and SI from the 1960s were mixed together in a pot. Don't even get me started on their charts and line graphs.

But Boom, many of the features inside this magazine are fantastic. And these features are the focal point of ESPN.com.

I have a feeling if you asked most college kids in J-school right now where they would want their Pulitzer quality feature to be printed or sent out to the media it would be the Outside the Lines link on ESPN.com. Thirty years ago, it would have been the SI feature that ended the magazine.

But the times they are a changing.

 

OK back to the actual article.

A couple of biases up front - A: I'm not a fan of these year in review deals because I think they are cheap gimmicks, B: I canceled my subscription to the magazine because it was crap.

The first part about the last game at Yankee Stadium was a head scratcher. Jeter is signing things then Jones talks about how he got a frozen pretzel at his first game at the Stadium? Did Jeter sign the frozen pretzel - otherwise WTF? Is Jones' first game at the House that Ruth built that important to warrant a couple hundred words? Who the fuck cares. Seriously - there's not "I" in team but it seems like there was nothing but "I"'s in that first bit that was supposed to be about the last game at Yankee Stadium but ended up as a ego-centric "look at me" waste of my time.

I'm going to force myself to read the second entry but if it turns into a tale of how Jones first learned to swim - I swear I won't be responsible for my actions.