Tim Layden says objectivity is dying in sports reporting

Opinion is not an antonym to objectivity. You can be completely objective and reach the conclusion that the officials did a poor job.

Let's take the opposite example. You think a end-of-game block was clean but coach complains about it after the game; you don't have a quote from someone on the other side. Do you just use the quote without injecting your own "opinion," thereby leaving the readers with the impression the coach is right in how he described the call--even when you think he was wrong?

 

My only answer to that is, that's what columns are for. And the line has become very blurred, to the detriment of the profession.

(I shall be shouting at those damn kids to get off my lawn any time now.)

 

So explain to me how you would go about writing a game story. If you feature a certain play or athlete, are you not offering an implicit "opinion" about the importance of that event or person? What's the difference between that and offering what you believe to be your unbiased and accurate description of a bad call?

 

An unbiased and accurate description of a bad call doesn't call it a bad call. It describes the call, and if there are comments about said call, they may be quoted. "What you believe to be your unbiased and accurate description" IS your personal bias.

 

So you can describe the call to convince your readers it was a bad call and you can include quotes to convince your readers that it was a bad call but you're prohibited from telling readers that? What purpose does that serve? And how does it have anything to do with objectivity?

 

I don't know what else to tell you; maybe someone else can explain it better. And you're not "prohibited" from telling readers that; it obviously has become the norm. But there is a line of objectivity, and when you term an official's call a "bad call," that is a subjective statement.

Also, you're not providing those quotes to convince readers of anything. You are merely presenting the opinions of principals in the matter -- which you, the journalist, are not. If you're trying to convince readers of something, that's where the column comes in.

Remember about journalists being the fly on the wall? We really did play by those rules once.

 

You're having trouble explaining it because your position makes no sense. The way a journalist presents facts is, at bottom, an opinion about what was important, how things occurred, etc. That does not mean the reporter is not objective, nor does expressly stating that opinion. Johnny scored 10 points might be a fact--but including that fact in your story is a judgment (i.e., an opinion) that him scoring 10 points was important.

What might be problematic is a reporter that loves the team telling readers a call was bad even though it was objectively good, because of his bias. That is very, very different from a "neutral" reporter watching events unfold and concluding, without any allegiances, that the referee screwed up.

 

We can go back and forth on this all day. I know where my line is; you know where yours is, or if there is one.

 

The lines have long been blurred in this sense: At almost every shop, the subjective columnist is valued more and paid better than the objective beat writer. So the message coming from that was, better to give your opinions than write facts. And since a columnist never has any intention of giving up his job, and the job tends to be comparable to a Supreme Court appointment, what you do writers who have, well, better opinions, do?

They go to the Internet. And it didn't take them long to go after the "opinion-makers" as lazy, unprogressive and boring. That's what Fire Joe Morgan was all about. That's what Deadspin is. That's what Bill Simmons was all about. I don't think much of Simmons, really, but was he qualified to be an opinion columnist at the Boston Herald? Sure. The Globe, even. But it was easier for Simmons to do everything he did than have either of those jobs.

Newspapers, being run by people who resist changing their faces of their newspapers more than just about anything, took it on the chin over many years because the same white dudes who had been columnists for 25 years never changed.

 

I'd say about 95 percent of the teams I've covered over 26 years have had "likeable coaches and players" that made my job easier but I didn't "root" for them. I don't give a shit if they win or lose. I'm not a fan. I've got a job to do, and that's get my story done before deadline. I have no emotional attachment to the school I cover. I appreciate the coaches and players that make my job easier. I tell them thank you when they're helpful and accessible. I don't root against them. I tell their story. It's not hard.

 

Yikes.

 

Yes, but Doc, if we were to say "yikes" publicly about that, the new wave of journalists would tell us to settle down and get with the times.