The Jones interview with Wright Thompson

Agreed. Extremely interesting take that makes many excellent points.

 

I should know better anyway. Old habits die hard.

 

The Gene Weingarten interview is even better.

 

Mike Harris -- no, not that one would beg to differ

 

I've said this before: Thompson isn't really a sports writer. He's a travel writer who writes about sports.

 

Just remember if you ever go to Yankee Stadium you will be going to "the Bronx" not going to "Bronx".

 

Here's my issue with like comments. Why does Thompson -- or anyone of his ilk in the profession -- need to be classified.
There is no denying his talent, his storytelling and his output. I would put Wright's execution, right now, against anyone in the business. Anyone.
I think we fall into traps when we try to categorize this type of talent.
Whether he's a "travel writer," and " 'I' guy," or a "storyteller, not a writer." Frankly, if he worked for me, I wouldn't give two shits. What he is, is anomalous and distinctive.
And that's what sets him apart.

 

You've gone so Big Time!

 

I guess, but I don't think it's unreasonable - as practicioners and students of the craft - to make a study of where a particular writer fits into the grand tradition of journalism. We do it with novelists, right, and don't think twice about it? People earn PhD's writing about whether Joyce Carol Oats or Margaret Atwood or Cormac McCarthy falls into one tradition or another.

I think it helps illuminate Thompson or anyone else's work to deconstruct it as part of a particular branch of nonfiction. What I am saying is that to compare his work to, say, Tom Friend's, is not valid and doesn't do Thompson's work justice. He is more like a travel writer-slash-memoirist.

 

this.

funny, i used to read a gary smith piece, finish it and slam down the magazine in disgust, rail that i had to quit the biz 'cause i'd never be that good... then i rationalized that to call both of us 'sportswriters' was wrong -- i was a 'sportswriter,' nuts-and-bolts, daily reportage variety; smith is an artiste, a pure writer who could light up the sky with a 10,000 word piece; his subjects just happened to be sports-related.

it helped me to go on and strive to be the best i could be as a muck-and-grinder. hey, those guys can be hof'ers, too, right? not everyone can be orr or gretzky.

so call thompson a 'travel writer' if it makes you feel better. i understand completely. to accept that we're both sportswriters would be too painful.