barry horn on ed werder's daughter

don't know or much care if it's a db. it's worth it and ed's one of the good guys:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/columnists/barryhorn/20121123-hot-air-daughters-recovery-is-holiday-gift-for-espn-s-ed-werder.ece?action=reregister

 

Nice story, but terrible article. I don't know Barry Horn from a hole in the ground, but that was pedestrian at best.

I do wish good things for the Werders, and any family battling any kind of illness at the holidays.

 

It is a nice story, but I couldn't get past the first four or five grafs.

 

I don't know if Barry Horn falls into this category or not, but the sportswriting world is chalked full of people who are bad at writing sports. I'm sure that's the case at the Dallas Morning News, among many, many others. I enjoyed the article for what it was. Uplifting information. But I'm sure it could have written better.

Another thing — and this has nothing to do with Horn's article — what I hear from the youngsters that come through my shop, poor writing, in the name of uber-attribution, is being taught at the J-schools. Everybody, even unquoted, has to have "said" something. Like, "Gern Blanston said he was 21 when he first began paying attention to women's curling." Can't we take anybody's word for anything?

Two completely different thoughts. Didn't mean to hijack the thread.

 

A non-sports person used to always end roundups or briefs by saying "Podunk will play again Tuesday at 7 p.m., according to the state athletic website."

 

Barry Horn has been on the gravy train and had a sweet gig for the last 10-15 years.

He writes one TV column (Hot Air) that takes up 4 columns each Saturday. Usually a feature/newsy lead with some notes, about half of which are culled from releases. He also writes a takeout-type feature every now and then.

And, obviously, he didn't exactly bust his balls on this effort.

 

Ed and I were colleagues when Christie was born, and we stayed in touch until sometime in the early 1990s to mid-1990s when both of us changed jobs/cities a few times, and certainly before I had e-mail. So all of this is news to me, and thanks to Shockey for posting this. I will certainly send a letter to Ed tomorrow -- the old-fashioned snail-mail way.

 

Good that no one here is jealous of someone working at a great job who has had tremendous success.

 

Isn't it, though.
I mean, you're right, but I'm of two minds on that.
Where I work — small sports staff, small news staff Big 12 daily — there's one person at the paper who, I think, simply never sweats, never tries to do something great, works their part of the paper like it's 1978 (or even 1998, because I wasn't around in 1978). You know, this person's job is necessary, but a minimum effort is enough to keep the ME out of this person's hair, so that's what the effort is. That kind of thing will never not bother me. Never. So, if Mr. Horn is on a gravy train, terrific for him. But if his job doesn't pull him in several directions, or if he doesn't push himself because the job doesn't do it for him, I would imagine he's losing the respect of people on his staff who are pushed or who are pushing. Or maybe it's just us smaller paper guys who are jealous, sure, but righteously don't get it when they see somebody on that train. That's a hard thing to apologize for.

 

I guess stories really don't write themselves.

Also, Werder should have let her go to the Super Bowl.

Is it, now?

 

I'm sure Horn does some less-than-stellar work but also does terrific work. Random google search finds this relatively minor award but it's from a few months ago:

Aug. 3, 2012
Feature Writing (Southwest)
More than 125K

1. Barry Horn, The Dallas Morning News
2. Jeff McDonald, San Antonio Express-News
3. Brad Townsend, The Dallas Morning News


He's been an APSE top-3 winner several times in the biggest category. So to associate him with "bad writing" is ignorant.