TV sports guys are idiots

One of my favorite TV moments came years ago when Jill Arrington was covering Arena Football. Some guy got hurt and she interviewed the coach live on the air at halftime about the injury. The coach says the guy blew out his ACL. Her follow-up: "So he's not likely to come back in the second half?"

 

Yep. Well said.

At my shop, our biggest problem with TV people is they expect us to give them scores over the phone on deadline during Friday night football frenzy, so they can put it on TV first before we can get it to the Web. Our SE is militant toward them, I understand it. The TV people, from multiple stations, just don't identify themselves now when they ask for scores. Fortunately, we have caller ID. Said SE will just hang up on them or give them the wrong score.

 

Absolutely, 100% right.

 

Joe, with all due respect... you couldn't possibly be more full of shit on this one.

I work in the same market. There are TV sports guys in this market who are blithering idiots. One was hired because he attended the GM's church. There are also some who are very sharp and absolutely know their stuff.

There are also reporters and columnists here who are damn good. There are others -- some with major beats -- who are completely incapable of forming a sentence. Others have covered beats outside the big three sports and shown that even after a full season they have no understanding of the sport whatsoever.

The good outweigh the bad on both sides. But don't pretend the print side is nothing but Pulitzer candidates.

 

I agree that we can't paint all TV guys with a broad stroke, but in my market we can. All three stations, about seven sports guys, wait until the newspaper reports something on its Web site then take the story and use as their own that night. I can think of only one story the stations have broke here in the last several years. These guys shouldn't even call themselves journalists.

 

I've always said, only somewhat jokingly, that newspapers can't go out of business because then radio and sports talk shows/broadcasts wouldn't have anything to talk about.

 

Most of 'em would have to "gasp" work.

A concept, yes.

 

My favorite is the ol' "KFUK has learned" bit ... yeah, chucklehead, you learned it by reading the newspaper.

 

Someone explain this complaint to me, because I see it a lot - "we broke the story on our website and they used it that night!"

So, say you look at a competitor's website and see that they've broken a story that affects your readership. Do you (a) confirm that story ASAP and run it, or (b) wait one day to pay respect to their scoop, and then run it a day later giving full credit to your competitor?

Honestly, anyone who sees a major story on a competitor's website and doesn't work to confirm and report it isn't doing their job. And you have no idea if they confirmed it or not. In my shop, nothing gets on the air without independent confirmation.

 

I don't know what office you're running for, but you get my vote.

 

I always find it amusing watching a TV newscast, say, around World Series time, and watching the regular newscasters try to banter about sports, even though they really don't know much about it.