Le Batard opines on sports journalism

Bullwinkle · Aug 10, 2010

Dick Whitman said:

For the record, not all the commenters after LeBatard's column are media-bashing. Plenty are LeBatard bashing:

Emmanuel_Samington wrote on 08/09/2010 09:17:36 PM:

This is what I got out of this column: Dan LeBatard poses no discernable life skills. Either that or he has become extremely lazy and is wasting his talent at this point. Try harder, Dan, pretty please. No more quotes pulled from your radio show. No more imbecilic perspectives conceived by your underdeveloped mind. No more writing about yourself because you are not interesting. In a word, go live a life and report back to me. Here is what you fail to realize: Dumb athletes should be treated as such. To put them on a pedestal even more than they already are is doing a disservice to our society. If an athlete is dumb, you call him dumb. It doesn't get any "realer" than that.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/08/v-fullstory/1766393/being-real-just-isnt-worth-the.html#ixzz0wDcmTaOE
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You really think that's a reader response? Everything is spelled correctly and the comment is completely reasonable.

Must be somebody from this board.

PaulS · Aug 10, 2010

Does this mean he will leave PTI? That is exactly the format that breeds the kind of shoot-from-the-hip, immediate-judgment stuff he is complaining about.

Starman · Aug 10, 2010

Kid Presentable said:

DLB spent a nice chunk of the show yesterday talking about his column, and how anyone in the media who didn't like it is thin-skinned and intellectually devoid.
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Ha. I don't like it, and I'm sure I have 30 IQ points on Danny Boy. Back on your knees, son.

Smasher_Sloan · Aug 10, 2010

Alma said:

This is a rank piece of intellectual dishonesty. My personal favorite line is this:

"This is why Cincinnati's Chad Ochocinco forms his own media -- to eliminate the news filter clogged with the sensibilities of reporters who don't look or think anything like him."

Because a guy who changes his name to a couple of Spanish numbers (and is pondering switching to two Japanese numbers) wouldn't be the kind of person who'd normally, you know, seek to form his own media for the sake of publicity.
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That's Lebo-ism at its Lebo-est. Find a guy who most people think is a self-serving fuckwad, then hint that "I get him when most people don't."

See, Lebo sees something deeper, even if it isn't there.

He's so fucking cool.

podunk press · Aug 10, 2010

Really strange column.

It reads like it came from someone who hates his job.

AD · Aug 11, 2010

ding!

Twoback · Aug 12, 2010

Cuban is a clown.
There are lots of dumb media guys.
He's also the one who paid Erick Dampier $12 million to average 6 pts last season.
So who's the dumbest guy in the room now?

Twoback · Aug 12, 2010

Guybehindtheguy said:

Agree totally with Van Gundy. We beg for honesty and crush people when they are. Not saying we shouldn't call a spade a spade when somebody like Iverson starts "talkin 'bout practice" but it's amazing how easily we'll flame somebody one time just to make a splash, an action that usually causes the athlete/coach/source to change their level of candor.
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Here's the problem with that notion:
The people who "crush people" aren't the ones who are looking for honesty.
Reporters are the ones searching for honest answers to legitimate questions.
Sports talk flamers and blog amateurs are the ones who go crazy on those quotes.
Perfect example: Joey Votto's words at the All-Star Game.
Professional journalists didn't go after him for the stuff about not liking the Cubs.

Dick Whitman · Aug 12, 2010

For a lot of these thin-skinned adolescents, "Ripping me for being honest" = "Reporting what I said."

I've been through it before with guys. Over and over.

"Nah, man, I ain't talking to you. You the one rip me for just being honest."
"Where did I rip you? When?"
"In the paper. Ripped my ass."
"Well, here's the paper. Where did I rip you?"
"Right there, man. Front page."
"That's just a direct quote. There's no opinion in it."
"Yeah, but had to put it out there on the front page. Now I'm catching all kinds of shit."
"From who? Not from me."
"Man, my teammates. Manger. GM."
"That's not my fault."

And holy shit if you quote a college athlete honestly and accurately. Ask Jeremy Fowler.

Ben_Hecht · Aug 13, 2010

Kindred just delivered the punch Lebo's been begging for, for years.

Don't have the link, but I'm sure somebody'll come up with it.

Mr. X · Aug 13, 2010

Kindred's response: http://sportsjournalism.org/sports-media-news/in-defense-of-an-annoying-profession-with-knickers-in-a-decided-twist/

CarlSpackler · Aug 13, 2010

Elliotte Friedman said:

That's funny, Kid Presentable, because I spent some time yesterday between tennis matches wondering if, in responding to this topic, I had been thin-skinned. (But not "intellectually devoid." I gave up on that years ago.)

Aside from the Van Gundy point, that column is so full of shit it's incredible. And it starts with the lede. For LeBatard to say that reporters don't get questioned/roasted about their work is so incredibly wrong, I honestly can't find the words to describe it. Maybe we don't have microphones stuck in our faces, but look at the online comments below any of our articles/blogs, whatever. Is he going to seriously claim SOME of the things written there are are easier to put up with than the five-minute post-game scrum an athlete must do with reporters? Give me a break.

Aside from Van Gundy, you know what most of the people in that article are complaining about? They don't like to be questioned. And, even more importantly, they not used to being questioned. How many people in their lives are honest/tough enough to stand up to Mark Cuban or Chad Johnson or Terrell Owens or Isiah Thomas? (I admit I like Isiah personally because of how well he treated me as a stupid rookie radio reporter in 1995.) The answer is: almost nobody. So, some reporters question their failings, and they can't deal with it. That's what this is all about.

What LeBatard misses is that accountability is a great thing. And that goes both ways. Very early in my career, one of my mentors, Dave Perkins of The Toronto Star, just destroyed Tony Fernandez in a column when the Blue Jays re-acquired him in 1993. The day it appeared in print, he showed up in the team's clubhouse, stuck has tape recorder in Fernandez's face, and basically said, "What do you have to say for yourself?" The other players totally respected that. I haven't forgotten it. During the Beijing Olympics, I asked the worst question of my career during a live interview, and was ripped in print across the country. You know what? I deserved it.

If you do something wrong, you get called on it. What's wrong with that?
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Did you ask someone if he was still a nail-biter?

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Le Batard opines on sports journalism

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