privileged sportswriters

Mushrooms?

 

Last time I ate mushrooms was from a paper bag in the right field bleachers during a night game at Yankee Stadium around 1989. Dude in the upper deck along the left field line (about 250 yards away) was looking at me funny, so I decided to go up there and find him. (Of course, you couldn't get to the main part of the stadium from the bleachers but somehow I was still away from my seat for an hour and a half.)

 

Ridiculous.
No access?
No truth.
Period. End of story.

 

People who write that stuff don't understand that it's not just about what happens between the lines. If that was the case, we would have all been out of business when television started.

 

Good grief, this guy is wrong on so many levels it's amazing to me his drivel even saw the light of the internet day.

First, a good sportswriter is most specifically NOT a fan. People constantly ask me if I have a favorite driver in NASCAR. It's a logical question since most fans do have a favorite driver and they guess I do, too, since I have to be a fan. The truth, of course, is that when I do have a rooting interest it's when I root for the best story. The dramatic finish, the first-time winner, the driver overcoming long odds -- that stuff.

If I had to pay to go to sports events, I would try to go to the Masters, the night race at Bristol and maybe the ACC or an NCAA Tournament game. The rest would be minor league baseball, high school football or something economical and convenient. Even if I had the means, I sure as hell wouldn't spend 140 nights a year chasing stock-car racing around the country. And I dare say few beat writers would, either.

To say a reporter must be biased because of his access then say that a fan can stay neutral because he lacks access is ridiculous. By definition, the fan picks sides. He picks favorites WITHOUT knowing that one guy might be a lying creep and another might be the best guy you've ever met. I will absolutely tell you that any sportswriter who tells you he's totally objective, especially a beat writer, is a liar. But to say that professional sportswriters only praise guys they like and rip guys they don't is a joke.

This, of course, is the basic flaw here. Drew speaks in sweeping generalizations that anybody with access abuses it and anybody without it rises above the travails of allowing personal feelings to shade the work. The truth is that when you group people you almost always wind up looking like an idiot.

 

It's crap like this that gives bloggers a bad name.

Long winded, pointless and to use an antiquated word, vulgar. Nasty bit of business, that.

Oh, and the last thing I want to hear is Gord from Scarborough's opinion on ANYTHING.

 

Most columnists fail to give insight so often, it isn't even funny. Just my opinion. I am not going to get into a Texas deathmatch over this thread, but in general, I completely agree with this guy. I thought he nailed it. I agree with him.

 

Just because too many columnists don't make adequate, if any, use of their access doesn't mean access isn't necessary to develop a fully informed opinion. I'd argue that the best reporters are often those that use their access most thoroughly.

 

Blogging (when it includes only opinion and no independent sourcing) has been great for fans because it gives them a chance to be part of the dialog. And that's good for fans, teams and even us because it gives us insight to part of the effect of what we cover.

But they aren't the same. Nor should they be. And sitting back and saying that I'm better than you nyah nyah nyah just reinforces that sense that bloggers lack objectivity.

 

There is quite often a disconnect between long-time sportswriters and the fans. After years and years of sitting in press boxes and talking to athletes, coaches, GMs, etc., they forget what it's like to be a fan and spend your hard-earned money on your favorite team.

Still, I would sure hope there are people out there with access to things the regular Joes can't touch. I would hope these big-name guys get to experience sports in a completely different way than the average fan. Nothing wrong with that.

If this Big Daddy Drew's learning everything he knows about sports and writing from reading websites written by guys who watch sports in bars and then write about watching sports in bars, he's not going to learn much.

BTW, Will Leitch's book = ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

 

Except in the sense that they sometimes believe that the obsessives who call in to radio shows are typical sports fans, I don't see it. But then the bloggers I've read are even worse about taking sports far too seriously.

 

Why should we be surprised that such tripe as this blog gets an approving audience? It is the natural de-evolution of things. It's where we've been headed since someone (pretty sure it was Satan) invented blogs and sold the idiotic notion that anyone with a modem and a TV set can be a sports writer.

This blog was particularly inane and represents another level of head-shaking stupidity in that it criticizes those with access, as if actually talking to your subject and asking a few questions - maybe gaining, oh, some KNOWLEDGE - is somehow a bad thing. I'm not quite sure how to respond to that, other than "wow."

Things have been headed in this direction since objectivity became something to be mocked. It started with talk radio: with shows names like "The Homer" and "The Team" and so on. Guys who never leave the comfort of their studios sit there and rip the writers who are gathering the information that they use to keep their parasitic shows alive. You'd think people would be smart enough to see though this, but apparently they aren't.

When I think about the state of our business, it's that level of ignorance that worries me more than falling stock prices or idiot CEO's. Business comes and goes in cycles. But stupid people, sigh, are gaining on us all.