An appalling piece of journalism

Anybody else read the Ron Artest cover story in the most recent ESPN magazine? It's laughable on a quite a few levels, most notably because people give three shits about Ron Artest at this point.

I know as a reader I really enjoy a journalist telling me, at length:

1. What I'm thinking
2. What I thought
3. Why I'm wrong about what I thought
4. What I should think, considering how wrong I was about what I thought.

It's a 2000-word apology for Artest's behavior. I'm used to apologies in ESPN. But I am not used to apologies that present themselves as novel when Artest has had more defenders from Larry Bird to Michael Jordan to most analysts of the Palace brawl.

I've noticed this trend in journalism of false construction for some time. It's the idea of basing one's entire piece off a dubious or untrue premise - <i> Ron Artest is still a black-hatted villain, and it's because <b>you</b> don't <b> understand </b> the <b>ghetto </b>, </i> - and then attempting to pass off the resulting counterarguments as profound. The result is more than a fawn, it's a phony indictment.

 

I think it's quite appropriate that ESPN the Magazine featured Artest as their cover story.

One's just as relevant as the other in their respective industry/profession.

 

Is it any worse the SI deifying Ray Lewis as God's linebacker?

 

You know what I think?

I think Alma's right.

That's what I think.

 

Chasing one another -- downhill . . .

 

ESPN has a magazine?

 

I don't understand your problem...
I've never had a hard time reading:

E
S
the P N

M A G
A
Z
I
N
E

 

I didn't think SI was deifying Lewis at all. He thinks he's god's linebacker, hence why there is a strange dichotomy to him that SI was trying to portray.

 

Spnited, I still refuse to believe that you actually read that Ray Lewis story if you think that SI was Brown Bunny-ing him in the same manner that ESPN: The Mag is doing to Artest.

If that's false, please correct me. But if all you saw is the cover, or are basing that statement off of reading the article's pull quotes, I think you should rethink things.

Alma, I'm going to check out the Artest piece and get back to you.

 

I don't think for a minute that whatever SI wrote (and yes, I judged by the obscene cover and the pull quotes that made Ray Lewis out to be such a wonderful god-fearing soul ... rather than a co-conspirator in a murder) could be nearly as fawning as anything written in ESPN the rag.

But the mere sight of angelic Ray Lewis on the SI cover made me sick to my stomach.

 

My guess is that the reporting didnt turn up much on Ron-Ron and so the writer had to adopt the "You think you know Ron Artest" slant. In other words, it's fancy writing to try and cover up the fact that nothing's there. Sometimes that works. This time it didnt.

 

At this point, there just isn't much there.