Simmons on sports writing

Did anyone catch this section in today's exchange with Malcolm Gladwell?

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8016432/gladwell-vs-simmons-iv

Thoughts?

 

I find it difficult to believe that Bill Simmons does not realize that what he sees in press conferences and gang-bangs is the tip of the iceberg in the player-reporter relationship. Frankly, if he's being honest, and I don't know why he wouldn't be, it stuns me that someone who has risen to his level in the profession doesn't get that.

 

He's never had a beat. Why would he know it?

 

Alma's right.

 

Exactly.

 

Bingo.

 

He's always thought he "could do what they do" even if apparently every major newspaper in the country has disagreed with him.

Simmons is good at what he does and he created his own brand. It's really time that he be proud of what he has accomplished outside of sports journalism's mainstream and the success he has had, rather than trying to make all journalists become homers.

 

Because at this point he works at a mainstream site, he hires and presumably fires sports writers, some of whom come from traditional backgrounds. He walks among us, to some extent. You'd think that, at some point, he'd have talked to somebody about what reporters do. I mean, he reads stories, doesn't he? He sees that they break, sometimes not off of press conferences or releases, doesn't he?

 

You get the feeling the reason he never made it as a Boston beat writer is that he never really respected the craft and what it takes to work a competitive beat.

I mean, if he really thinks you can watch the game on TV and view the press conference (which, by the way, involves sportswriters, you know, asking questions) and do just as good a job, it becomes pretty obvious why he never found success down that avenue.

He found success his own way, and kudos to him, because I'd love to be in his position. But really, it's time to stop trying to make people think that sportswriters bring nothing to the table just because he, apparently, brought nothing to the table.

The perfect example is his above statement and notion that watching the game on TV and getting the quotes, he could "write the same story, or at least pretty close." Maybe he could. But the best writers don't write the "the same story, or at least pretty close." They write what no one else writes and they write it better than others.

 

You'd think so.

But I have a feeling Simmons doesn't put that much thought into it. And that he never lets his own worldview - there's never a reason to leave the couch thanks to HDTV and the Internet - be compromised.

I wonder if he'd be favor of, say, NBA announcers working the game off a video feed (as ESPN has had some soccer announcers do in the past) or if the Red Sox announcers were back in Boston calling a feed of a game in Anaheim. I suspect he'd not be cool with that.

 

I seem to recall Will Leitch saying something similar in "God Save the Fan," that by being on a team's list for news releases and viewing the raw feed from postgame newsers, you could essentially cover a team without ever leaving your home office/living room/mancave/whatever.

 

Anyone who argues that is really just arguing that sportswriters aren't needed because team PR personnel do the job just fine.