Leitch on Darren Rovell

In essence "He's a nice-enough fella and I'd have a beer with him but I work for a nothing Internet sportswriting website and feel like ripping a successful reporter for ESPN."

Complete waste of time and energy. What's the point, Will?

 

I do hate Rovell when he breaks news I have to deal with.

 

You'd think that Leitch would be the last person to stand up for the concept of sports as Homeric epic poetry.

 

I'm in the media field. I like Darren Rovell.

Why didn't you call me, Will?

I read the story, and I have absolutely no idea why he's going after Rovell. OK, so he's a shill. Who cares?

 

I like Rovell's work stuff. I think the money side of sports gets overlooked way too often.

But he does venture into the "look at how awesome my life is" stuff like tweeting photos of him with models or freebies companies send him.

 

Will Leitch completely summed up why I can't stand Darren Rovell. But it's a worthless column that only draws attention to the guy.

 

So many business reporters in general are shills for ... well, business. I say that as someone who's worked news-side with many biz reporters. You see it a lot in coverage of real estate, for instance, where if home prices aren't rising, rising, rising, the world is ending, ending, ending. Even after the bubble burst in 2007-08, you still don't see much skeptical coverage of shady housing practices that are still going on. (See, most notably: the "artificial supply" problem that is rampant now in major U.S. cities. But it's a problem that's barely being covered at all in what few mainstream media business sections are left.)

Rovell is no different. His coverage is so one-sided — How much money is a company/team/league making? And how can it make more? And if more money isn't being made, whose fault is that? (Usually it's the nonsupportive fans, in Rovell's eyes. Never the company's fault. Business uber alles.)

That's a shame, because Rovell really has built a great niche for himself and he does break a lot of important stories that aren't covered by anyone else. (Which is why most of us still follow him on Twitter.) I wouldn't mind the PR regurgitation and the shameless self-promotion nearly as much if he weren't so in the can for big business and really covered sports business from all angles. But he doesn't, and it's aggravating.

 

Only skimmed the column, but the points are exactly right.

I thought the Kate Upton Incident was pretty bad considering context of his personal life.

 

Rovell, to borrow a phrase, knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

That said, if you don't like him, unfollow him. Simpler. When did everyone with a keyboard and a hotspot become a qualified critic of everything?

Also, not for nothing, but sports are epic and Homeric, as we find the first sports writing extant in Book 23 of the Iliad, the games at Patroclus' funeral.

 

That's what I did a long time ago.