Poynter article on Everett - insulting?

I suppose she has a point. A large part of our business is words, so semantics should be important to us. That's what I took from this, that she believes the semantics of the coverage of Everett's injury belie a certain attitude toward disabilities. Still, I can't help the impression that this is political correctness run amok. The fact of the matter is, Everett's livelihood was taken away. On a fundamental level, when a person's livelihood is taken away, they invariably feel less than whole. It's extremely unlikely he'll find something else to do with his life that will earn him the same income as playing pro football did.

And her apparent marginalization of the sports section is no different from the marginalization of disabilities she is criticizing.

 

I recall writing a story a few years back about a coach's daughter fighting a disease.

I used some phrasing in there like 'suffers from' or something and you'd have thought I had dropped a racial slur from the email reactions I got.

It was eye-opening, and definitely made me more cognizant for the future. But also a little over the top, too.

 

I think it was stupid of her to admit it, but I don't think it's at all unusual. And I do think it's almost as bad when a sports writer does it, and here's why:

There are too many people in newsrooms who aren't newspaper readers, who read only their own section, if that. Not only do they feel no sense of duty to keep up with the whole of their circulation area, they take no delight in the overall product. And thus they are completely incapable of delivering anything remotely satisfying to customers who do. In my opinion, the biggest reason why newspapers are struggling is that many of the people writing, editing and managing newsrooms are far less engaged with the community and less intellectually curious than the people who pay to read the paper. I don't see how newspapers can avoid struggling as long as they employ such people in ANY newsroom capacity. It's like running an expensive restaurant in which the cooks, at home, eat nothing but microwaved food. If they take no personal delight in food, if they have no passion for it, their creations are rote, bland blobs of crud.

 

If I was the Buffalo News SE, I'd be less than thrilled that an AME chose a public forum to treat him like an insignificant part of their operation.

 

I don't think it was an intentiional diss. More an attempt a "hey, I don't know sports, but...." kind of thing.

That said, I agree with the "blobs of crud" analogy.

 

Frank, this paragraph should be posted in every newsroom in America.

I know far too many people - sports people included - who wear their lack of interest in the rest of the paper, an even stuff in their own section, as a badge of honor.

I knew a suburban guy who covered a pro sports beat who loved to brag about not knowing what high schools and small colleges - or even towns - were in his paper's circulation area.

 

I don't have the same visceral reaction some of you have, but I just think she's overreacting and misguided.

Look: A person who was one thing -- a professional athlete extending to the highest level something they've done and dreamed about doing all their lives -- and then loses that forever is less "whole" from their personal perspective than they were before.

And if you're somebody who could walk and run and then you can't do those things anymore for a while, and then you get that ability back, then yes, something has been restored.

That's not saying at all that people who are disabled can't live "whole" lives. But losing something you used to be able to do is indeed a "loss."

So I don't really get the point.

 

"Overreacting" is what we've done on this thread...we've called the woman "idiotic," "a piece of shit," "unprofessional," and "a low-life."

What, because she doesn't understand sports jargon? Any of you ever been in a Page 1 meeting where the Metro editor talks about the effects of SOL decline on the state's NCLB funding? One's mind tends to wander at such moments of journalistic drama.

Or has she deserved full-bore ad hominem attack because she wrote a weak lede? Like we've never done that?

I think LoTempio is guilty only of mediocre writing in that she almost said what she almost thought. Her point, as I interpret it, is that athletes are treated as "heroes" when the rest of us aren't given credit for leading lives under duress. The word "hero" ought to be sprinkled around throughout the paper. I know that when I see an old woman, a year after a stroke, show up at physical rehab 3x a week trying to lift a foot over a 6-inch tall pylon without toppling over, I consider her a hero.

 

That doesn't make Everett less of a hero or his story less compelling.

That's what I took from her piece, and she's dead wrong.

 

Most people, not just those in newsrooms, don't give a shit about what their peers do as long as it doesn't affect them.

 

How about because of the flip way in which she dealt with the sports editor in the lede/ She could have just as easily generalized it by talking about editors in general.

Nothing that gets said in the news meeting should be so far over the head of an AME that his/her eyes glaze over..

 

Dave, if anyone is making an ad hominem argument, it's LoTempio. There seems to be an assumption that because sporties are handling the story, they probably aren't doing it the right way. Personally, I though the Sports Illustrated article on Everett was terrific - I learned a lot from it about modern medicine. She seems to fear that because sports people are writing about Everett, they probably aren't getting the terminology correct.

I understand where you're coming from - without her disclaimer at the beginning, would we think that way? At that point, it becomes hard to separate the message from the messenger.

She gets a little bit of the benefit of the doubt from me because this is clearly not the first time she's written about disability issues in media coverage. So maybe we're just the latest to feel her sword. But I'm guessing there wasn't a column that began something along the lines of, "When the business editor begins talking about stocks and CEOs and all that money mumbo-jumbo, I have to fight every impulse I have not to nod off. Good guy, though. Sharp dresser."

Because she felt compelled to begin this column in that manner, I feel that everything that followed was condescending. As in, "Before I dirty my hands writing about the ... ewwww ... sports section ... I want you to know that I don't actually read it or pay attention to it."