Le Batard opines on sports journalism

I didn't get the closing anecdote. Ever since sportswriters were breaking news on cave walls, there's always been varying degrees of inherent nervousness before the "scoop" becomes official. So what? What was the point of that?

 

God help me, since I started grad school a year ago, I've found myself agreeing with/like LeBatard more (mainly on PTI, when he can be a nice foil to the stubbornly traditional Wilbon/Kornheiser). But this column fell flat to me. For one, it was cliche, reflexive thinking and writing. The Teddy Roosevelt quote? The "imagine someone asking you questions after your bad day at work" lede? There are a lot of questions to raise about the sports media these days. Doing it like that does not help your argument.

I also resent the "these aren't the best and brightest" line. There are a lot of very, very smart people in this business. To suggest otherwise is an insult to the smart, hard-working people I know in this business, and it's a cheap shot to try to score points with athletes.

Also, and more importantly, what is the answer? What does LeBatard think sports journalism should look like? What should it be? Think there are problems, fine. What should it look like? Because from what he wrote here, it looks like he thinks it should be the "never is heard a discouraging word about these hard-working young men whom we can't possibly relate to" model. Is that what we really want our sports pages to look like?

 

No reason to resent it. It's basically true.

You absolutely can be among the best and brightest in this profession --- and there are many who fit that description.

But you do not HAVE to be. That's the difference. To be a doctor or something of that ilk, you must provably demonstrate you are among the best and brightest.

This profession? We'll send someone who has never seen an auto race to cover one, and he'll come on here and start a thread entitled, "Covering my first auto race. Any tips?"

I don't think a dermatologist is going to be asked to transplant a heart and ask for online help: "Performing my first heart transplant. Any tips?"

You demand more, you get more. We don't demand more. But sometimes we're lucky and get it anyway.

 

I couldn't agree more with this.

There wasn't a paper I worked at that basic professionalism and competency wasn't an issue for some people. Not a lot of people, but always more than any outsider would have expected. We're talking things like showing up at assignments, not bringing your significant other into a press room, dressing appropriately, filing on time, and not having to have your stuff completely re-written.

I used to think standards were too low, but now I realize that most owners simply don't care. Oh, there are exceptions, usually in competitive markets, but mostly they just want to fill the space between the ads and do it at an absolute minimum cost.

 

1. LeBatard's shtick is to take the side of every big-name athlete who screws up or takes some heat. It's completely predictable.

2. For Mark Cuban to make such a stupid, sweeping generalization is just stupid.

3. The post above about Isiah Thomas couldn't be more on target.

(I wonder if Thomas spoke directly to LeBatard or if the quotes came from Thomas' appearance at the National Sports Journalism Center at IU. If the quotes were made earlier, it would have been appropriate to say that. Incredibly, Thomas was invited there as a guest speaker.)

 

So a couple quick thoughts:

1) Jim Carty is correct. It is shameful what passes for professionalism among some sports journalists.

2) That being said, LeBatard can suck one. This line made me see red: "This person doesn't put in your hours and isn't nearly as informed about your job as you are, but he gets paid to question you every day inside the TV, the radio, the newspaper."

Is it true about some guys? Maybe. There are columnists who make me groan because they don't know of what they write.

But I have been in countless situations where it was clear that I knew more about the sport than the guy I was speaking with who plays. As in daily.

Also, fuck Mark Cuban, too. You're going to tell me that in a locker room, the "dumbest guys in the room" are the writers who graduated from Northwestern, Syracuse, Missouri, and any number of grueling J-school programs? Dumber than the shit-for-brains right-hander who left that 2.2 GPA from high school way in the past as soon as his name was called in the draft?

And LeBatard runs that shit verbatim. Just to show he's one of "the boys." Asshole sycophant. I don't know how he looks himself in the mirror.

 

The Chad Pennington sob story is b.s., too.

Pennington lectured everyone about what a "privilege" it was to cover the New York Jets.

Can't see how that would have rubbed anyone the wrong way.

Anyway, in conclusion: What a bunch of fucking cry babies. Say what you want to say, then stand the fuck behind it and quit being such a bunch of martyrs. Ozzie Guillen says crazy shit all the time. Then he says more crazy shit the next day. If you're a secure person, you don't care. For being a bunch of supposed alpha males, there sure is some thin skin in the pro sports locker room.

 

I had no idea about the AP style re: "dumb asses" until I read that article.

Always thought it was one word.

 

DLB does stab at a good point that I see more and more nowadays in journalism, esp. in sports journalism - being first is gaining more of an importance than being right. Which was bound to happen with the advent of online/twitter/facebook/etc. And he used a good description what's happening to journalism because of it - "more reckless and less credible."

 

The Van Gundy point was spot on, but who is more likely to rip someone for saying something off-kilter - a guy on the beat, probably not, but how about the star columnist (LeBatard) or the out-of-shape ball player on the set? I'm sick of hack ex-jocks sitting on a television set, getting paid millions to say something any idiot off the street could say. Exactly how many of these dupes ever provide any insight that any moron who played high school ball or too much Madden couldn't? They rip the guys breaking the news that they get paid to talk about. Without those people, they wouldn't have a job, they would be sitting back in their hometown, telling every floozy at the bar about the good ol' days.

Can't wait to hear LeBatard's next tome on how awful his profession is for misunderstanding some drugged-out shit-head, renegade program or selfish jerk. Try going to the locker room.

 

If he's so ashamed of the business, he needs to get out.

 

More specifically, white sportswriter guilt.
Seems to me that DLB should fly to Cincy today, look the Bengals media corps in the face and ask them to defend themselves for being who and what they are.