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Tank Johnson columns

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by suburbanite, Jan 31, 2007.

  1. Chicago's resident douche checks in:

    http://www.suntimes.com/sports/mariotti/236408,CST-SPT-jay31.article
     
  2. beardown

    beardown Member

    Just because something's predictable doesn't mean it should be ignored. But it gets stale when everybody does it.

    Real cool dude. Herd mentality rules, Shockey.
     
  3. AreaMan

    AreaMan Member

    I couldn't agree more Pringle.
     
  4. Frank_Ridgeway

    Frank_Ridgeway Well-Known Member

    Significant gang activity there.
     
  5. AreaMan

    AreaMan Member

    Lots of gang activity around the Phoenix area especially.
     
  6. I've read all the columns -- liked some more than others -- and I still don't understand something. Maybe someone can shed some light. I've covered several Super Bowls, and I know that players are required to attend the media session. I know those who don't risk heavy fines. So why didn't the Bears, or even the NFL, pay or swallow the fine money and say this guy wasn't coming? They might have gotten away with it under the guise of being limited because of the judge's ruling.

    Talk about setting yourselves up for a PR disaster. I doubt Tank would have known he was going to get into the heavy-duty stuff, but surely the league would have known. It doesn't even sound like Tank had been told at least to be contrite for 60 minutes. The league should have known someone like Bill Plaschke would ask a question like, "Are you sorry?"

    Or maybe this is how the NFL wanted it. The guy was trotted out to be torched, and he only helped out by bringing along gasoline and a Bic lighter. Playing the race card only added another reason to light up the guy. I mean, if I'm standing there intending to write a column on the guy, I'm thinking, "Man, this is even better than I thought." As stupid as Tank sounded, the league seems even dumber to me. Talk about setting one up on a tee.
     
  7. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    The problem with the Super Bowl from a columnist's standpoint is ALL THE STORIES ARE OBVIOUS! If your team is in it, you've just spent six months writing two, three columns a week on them. What's left?
    If your team isn't in it, rest assured the readers and especially your bosses aren't interested in subtlety. They want a Peyton column, Tank column, Vinatieri column, etc. etc.
    It's what I call school figures sportswritining. There are mandatory topics and you try to do your best with them, hoping against hope your brain will come up with a new slant that escapes the 50 or so of your very talented colleagues who're obviously doing the same story today.
    The only Super Bowl hype week I found thoroughly satisfying was the Eagles-Pats. Since the obvious theme was "Pats dynasty" and my boss knew I was a history buff, I got to do lots of research and relatively little cattle call Q and A sessions.
    But if I was from Chicago that year, not Boston, I'd of been doing "Belichick still dull" and "wither TO" columns like everybody else except the complete jackoffs who write "this town blows" columns about the host city. Even Detroit deserves better than that crap.
     
  8. Cousin Jeffrey

    Cousin Jeffrey Active Member

    The guy who was PR director for Ray Lewis and the Ravens recommended the Bears just let Tank handle any questions. If you hold him out, or not allow "tough" questions, you just make it worse, was his reasoning. I guess the Ravens were very strict on what Ray could answer in '01 and it obviously didn't help.
     
  9. shockey

    shockey Active Member

    joe schmoe plucking down his 35 cents or so for his daily paper doesn't give a damn that every paper in the country did a gang-bang on tank. he only cares about what he's getting for his 35 cents.

    tank johnson, for better or worse, is a significant super bowl week piece for anyone with an opinion on today's athletes and whether they get too much of a break for being who they are.

    if that's tiresome to some of us in the biz who read everything in sight, that's just too bad. the best stories can't be ignored just because some of us don't want to read it in every paper in captivity. the folks we theoretically are here to serve are unlikely to read more than one newspaper.

    not everyone is a compelling story at the super bowl. tank johnson certainly is.
     
  10. writing irish

    writing irish Active Member

    That's true.
     
  11. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    Plashke column on Tank was a gem - as ususal

    Loved this exchange:

    asked Tank Johnson if he was sorry.

    "Sorry to who?" he said.

    Sorry to society?

    He turned his broad back to me. He shook his head. He laughed. He said nothing more.
     
  12. Frank_Ridgeway

    Frank_Ridgeway Well-Known Member

    Of course, some papers already did Tank Johnson during the season or the playoffs, in which case he is a notebook item now.

    In general, I think it is OK to zig when everyone is zagging as long as the writer has common sense about when it's inappropriate to zig, in other words, when everyone else is zagging because zagging is the only sane path. Be different except in those instances when being different is stupid.

    I used to work with someone who'd go to huge events and never write the obvious, which meant we had to run wire on the obvious in addition to the staff pieces on the obscure. This was frustrating because we had to play up our writer, but our writer was usually not writing the story that had the most news value or reader interest. You see this a lot with smaller or midsize papers that cover a live major event, yet seem compelled to find some tenuous local angle instead of actually covering the big event like a real newspaper. The big story from the Olympics may be basketball, and that may be what most of your readers are going to be curious about, but the paper will splash a local rower because "the readers can get the basketball game anywhere." Sure, anywhere but your paper.

    Or there was the writer I edited when he was quite young, who buried the fact that a college running back had gained 280 yards "because everyone's going to write about him."

    But during Hype Week or off-day regular-season stories when there is no compelling news, sure, be offbeat, even be weird, even dare to be ripped on SportsJournalists.com. As long as you don't miss the point on the days when the news matters, knock yourself out.
     
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