'Sports journalism critic' on the biz

Consider:

We're using the same excuses against the ivory tower that players use when they slam us with "hey, they never played the game -- how can they know what it's like?"

Consider the ideas, don't worry about the source so much.

 

say what you want, but the guy is right on about many beat writers writing for sources and not for the cat who's tossing 50 cents into the box down at the local convenience store.

 

The fact that he went to all the trouble and hard work of getting his doctorate and he's pretty much re-hashing the same old criticisms of the industry without offering solutions is what's most disappointing about Scott's interview.
And the source here is important. Scott had no problem donning a hockey uni and posing for a photo that was slapped lifesize on the zambonis at the arena where he covered AHL hockey.

 

if you can stand on your squint you are already a better man than i.

 

Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner.
Full disclosure, I know the above poster and I know Scott Reinardy -- both quite well.
That said, if you want to bash Scott for not being a part of the biz, your assumptions are much, much worse than any of the "stereotypes" he used. This guy knows what he's doing, and he's trying to make the business a better one. There's another thread real close to this one that talks about the doomsday of sports writing -- and what do you know, it's included in this one, too.
I don't agree with everything Scott said in that Q and A, or in all of his writings, but overall, he's delivering a pretty good message.

 

Hey Doc --

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0707-20.htm
Please to STFU now.

UPDATE:
And this kind of insight --"There is nothing systemically wrong with ESPN's influence on sportswriting except that "boo-yah" doesn't have the same impact in ink as it does on the air. The greater issue addressed in that study was that sports editors were seeing sportswriters substituting facts with quirky writing. Good writing cannot occur without good reporting." -- is the kind of thing that makes the money spent on an advanced degree worthwhile.

 

Sorry, but he lost me at the SF Chronicle writers part.

A good critic can't blow a basic fact like that.

(Note: Fainaru-Wada covered, among other things, the 2004 Athens Olympics . . .)

 

So are you saying that it's been three years since Scott has worked at a newspaper, because that's a long time and it would be easy to get out of touch. Also I know Mizzou has a great j-school and all that good stuff, but is the university owned papers newsroom as fast paced as a paper of comparable size? That's just a question, because I've never picked up the paper and never been in that newsroom. I do know how hard people work to get a Ph.D, but I don't think it's any harder than breaking relevant news every week. It takes just as much dedication to become a great reporter as it does to stick your nose in a book and write academic papers. I'm not going to be impressed by someone just based on the fact they have a Ph.D. I'm not trying to discredit the guy I just questioned whether or not he was a valid source for the state of sports journalism. What's wrong with that?