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Best American Sports Writing 2018, Jeff Pearlman guest editor

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Songbird, Dec 29, 2017.

  1. Alma

    Alma Well-Known Member

    What kind?
     
  2. Pony_Express

    Pony_Express Member

    Pearlman may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but Sweetness and Boys Will Be Boys were both well written, immaculately researched books that were entertaining as hell to read. The new USFL book? Check, count me in. I’ll read whatever Pearlman writes.

    And no, I’m not Pearlman. Just a guy who likes a good story.
     
  3. typefitter

    typefitter Well-Known Member

    Jeff has made a very good and enviable career—and lifestyle—for himself, because he's excellent at what he does.
     
  4. lcjjdnh

    lcjjdnh Well-Known Member

    While there are a few exceptions, it seems like a lot of profiles and tearjerkers, no? Not many analytical pieces, or at least not of the Xs and Os. (And I’m not a journalist, so this isn’t sour grapes or anything.)
     
  5. DanOregon

    DanOregon Well-Known Member

    Is this the first time an Athletic story has made the cut?
     
  6. playthrough

    playthrough Moderator Staff Member

    I wrote sports for almost 20 years. My wife, primarily a news reporter/editor her entire career, wrote one notable sports feature while working at a regional magazine. Guess which one of us in the honorable mention of BASW.

    Yeah, fuk dat shit.
     
  7. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

    This is a good observation, and very fair.

    Where's Zach Lowe? Or Bill Barnwell? Who should represent the next-generation approach in sports writing?
     
    lcjjdnh likes this.
  8. Batman

    Batman Well-Known Member

    Obviously joking with my earlier comment, but I will say that there is an art and an ability to being able to pull together, MacGyver style:
    • A couple of Twitter updates
    • One or two text messages from someone at the game
    • A 5-minute phone call with a coach on the bus ride home
    • Some background knowledge of series and season trends
    ... into a tight, coherent 500-word story on deadline, in 30 minutes or less, that makes it sound like you were at the game.
     
  9. Alma

    Alma Well-Known Member

    It is, and that's pretty tricky, considering Pearlman now works for The Athletic.
     
  10. Alma

    Alma Well-Known Member

    Yeah, that's true. It's a human interest book.

    Awards and books likes these have changed journalism, for sure, and not necessarily in great ways. Used to be you measured a journalist - a columnist especially - by how they went out in the morning, found a damn story, and turned it around that night. Whole, over time, whole communities shaped and moved to the beat of a journalist's beat. You were embedded. The journalist was a key part of the fabric.

    Now, the prestige thing is to take two months, interview 39 people, write a centerpiece feature or series, win the accompanying awards, go on a speaking tour about the series, and land in some college student's reading list.

    I think it's benefited a handful and left a large part of the field thinking what they do doesn't matter because it wasn't 3,500 words and it didn't get a plaque. And that's an interesting bit of journocapitalism at play. As much as people want to say all journalism matters and local journalism matters and oh-look-at-all-that-corruption-missed-because-they're-aren't-any-local-watchdogs, journalists themselves don't really respect that kind of work. They respect the show ponies.
     
  11. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

    He's kind of overdone.
     
  12. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

    Blanket statement? You mean every single journalist doesn't respect that kind of work?
     
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