Sports Illustrated (Reggie Bush cover)

I think the rehashing of things that may be old to you is just part of writing for a national magazine. I think we had a simliar discussion on here when they had their Shaun Alexander cover and said people don't know him. "We all know Shaun Alexander!" Well, yeah, we do. But this is a general interest sports magazine. The Jurevicius stuff may have been covered in his markets, but not all readers of SI are aware of all that.

Not that it doesn't annoying. I work a major college beat that gets covered quite a bit by the national pubs, and often they'll parachute in and write features that cover ground that we've covered over and over.

So I make my rounds on the fan boards and all I see is, "Great QB feature by Austin Murphy!" or "Pat Forde with a great article about Coach!"

Part of the game. It does get annoying when you're trying to move up in the business, and everyone in the world thinks Pat Forde or Dennis Dodd was the first person to write about something re: one of your players. You just want to scream to sports editors, "I wrote that first! I broke it! Pat Forde/Austin Murphy/Dennis Dodd/Juliet Macur/Tom Friend found out about it through my clips!"

 

Be careful, Dye. Keep this up and you'll be accused of being a jealous, no-talent little league hack from East Bumblefrick. :
I'm glad to see these kinds of discussions on here. Would I enjoy it if my work was picked apart by unknowns on a message board? Probably not, but I think there are lessons to be learned in all this. Not every story is great just because it got into SI.

 

I'm surprised it hasn't happened already on this thread, Terd.

 

I don't really have a problem with the way the Jurevicius story was written.We can't be writing AP stories in SI, much less our newspapers, if we want to offer something different.

I do have a problem with the story being written in the first place. I'm not sure Jurevicious' talent and personal story rise to the level of being worthy of being in SI. I don't know, it kind of smacks of heralding a good skill position player who happens to be white. (Jason Sehorn, John Lynch, Ed McCaffrey.) They all seem to get an SI story at some point.

 

DyeP, my point about the tattoo (which is a small issue, but that seems to be the only kind you're capable of raising) is that it was only mentioned in passing, yet it was held up as an example of overwriting. Does the fact that it was mentioned in other stories make it off-limits for this one? In any case, it's pointless to spend this much time debating this. It was a perfectly fine, highly readable magazine piece. If you prefer bone-dry stories with no color, detail or cleverness, more power to you. There are plenty of them out there.

 

No. One. Is. Saying. That.

Crap -- these design "arguments" must be contagious. It must be nice to "refute" every point by citing the most ridiculous example of the counterpoint, then saying: "We CAN'T do that" (wring hands, try to sound smart).

 

Richard:

I don't know how to make this any more clear to you. The problem isn't just with trying to be clever. It's with trying to be clever in every sentence of your work and pounding the reader over the head with it.

I think my SIs from the late 1980s have been thrown out, but if I come across one, I'll post a segment of an article. The writing style was much different and far better in those days.

You must not have been on board yet, Richard.

 

That was explained more than 100 times in print during Super Bowl XXXVII. Maybe a couple dozen during Super Bowl XXXV. The Penn State writers might have had a thing or two to say about it as well.

I want original work and somebody saying something new. Your mileage may vary.

 

Dye, why do you keep insisting that because I disagree with you, I must not understand what you're saying? Could you be any more condescending? Once and for all, I get your point. I just don't think it's valid, not with this story. This isn't one of those pieces that spends three paragraphs describing a sunset, or is loaded with lame one-liners or pop-culture references. It also, to its credit, doesn't get all sappy over Jurevicius' tragedy. Could it have used one more read-through from a copy editor to catch some little things? Maybe. But there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the story.

 

Richard:

I'll give you the lack of lame one-liners and pop-culture references. But now you're using the lame argument of "Well, it's not as bad as this other dreck so it must be good."

I guess just arguing something on merit alone is a lost cause these days.

And I do seem to remember a description of a sunset in this piece. I guess you forget details after you write them, Richard. Happens to the best of us.

 

Well, now you're just making shit up. There's no description of a sunset in the story, although the word "dusk" does appear. I suppose to you, that's florid overwriting.

The only example I've seen of beating the reader over the head with (attempts at) cleverness is your continually referring to me as Richard. If that's the kind of thing you think is amusing, I guess it's no wonder that we disagree.

 

Dusk isn't a sunset? And I still haven't figured out what "snot-crackling dusk" is. What did you mean when you wrote that?

And even if you're not Richard, you are awfully defensive about this article. So you must have some direct connection to it.