The exact moment that Jason Whitlock stopped mattering

“Mattering,” in the context of this board, translates for me to “no longer believing and writing the things sports journalists are supposed to believe and write.”

As in, he doesn’t matter because he’s no longer on the right side of larger journalistic cause to make the world a better place, which is now the purpose of journalism.

 

He gets 27 pages on this board because it's a board for sports journalists and he used to be a sports journalist.

The general public has no clue who he is. He's just the fat Uncle Tom guy in the fedora.

 

Alma trying to turn this into a woke vs. non-woke thing is the most predictable thing since sp posted another Hat Guy missive.

 

The first post of the entire thread, started in 2020, said the day Jason Whitlock stopped mattering was the day Colin Kaepernick did not respond to his two-minute ramble in…2016.

 

OK, and?

Go ahead, finish your thought. Why is that woke vs. not woke?

 

How Jason Whitlock Is Poisoning ESPN's "Black Grantland"

 

The entire thread has been about Whitlock's cultural and political views. The thread did not start with "Whitlock doesn't land the plane on his column so much as parachute out of them mid-flight." (Which is a legitimate criticism.) It started where it started.

I'm not even suggesting most of the folks on the board are wrong about some or many of his positions. I am saying...the guy's political views are why, in this thread, he doesn't matter. "Mattering," in this case, is being a thought leader. He is not viewed as being a leader because the wrong thoughts about things.

 

Are they about Whitlock’s political and cultural views or are they about what Whitlock pretends are his political and cultural views?

 

Most of the people in the thread seem to think they're actually his views. But even if - according to you - he's pretending, it's...still about the views.

If the argument is "Person X stopped mattering for 27 pages when they became wildly insincere for the sake of profit" then we'd have a lot of 27-page threads about a lot of people.

 

If you think it isn’t obvious Whitlock is playing a role, at least in part, then we’re dealing with two sets of realities. Not much point in discussing it further.

 

I don't know if Jason Whitlock ever "mattered". I don't think many commentators "matter". But I think he used to write a really good football wrap-up column every week.

But just for the hell of it this week I listened to his podcast. He was discussing Cam Newton getting cut said and Newton did not have the gravitas and leadership abilities to be a successful NFL quarterback. Perhaps. But in 2015 Newton was the MVP on a team that lead the league in points scored and went to the Super Bowl. Was Newton listening to Bach and wearing dark, three piece suits that season? That was not that included in the discussion.

Whitlock also did not discuss that Newton was an NFL starting quarterback making twenty million dollars a year until he got hurt at the end of the 2018 season. Newton then missed the 2019 season, got waived and then signed a very inexpensive contract. Maybe his decline has something to do with his injuries.

Instead Whitlock perpetuated a stereotype. It is certainly possible to make money perpetuating stereotypes. We live in a media marketplace here you can earn a lot of money if you hit a small market segment.