Utne: Does sports journalism suck?

[Enter stage left, carrying soap box; stop center stage and mount box]

Let us cut to the chase rather than chase our tails like hydrophobic curs. This rant is but a childish derivative of the ultimate deconstruction of our craft. Towit:

"Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits, a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo cage."

It's what we do. Deal with it.

 

For someone whose premise was the demise of sportswriting, he sure found a lot of examples of the kind of stuff he wants to read.

The truth is, it's all out there, and in a lot of different forms. If you want long-form magazine writing there's Play. Sports Illustrated and ESPN give you a mix. Web sites like Yahoo sports give you news nuggets and opinion. There are gossip sites and fan sites. Of course, newspapers, well, we just keep feeding the beast, trying to do it all and trying to keep up with the changing industry. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we fail. But there's always the next day to try and do better.

 

Even more amusing was the first reader "comment" beneath the piece.

His agents are everywhere.

 

"A sea of dead, beaten horses?"
And Euterpe, muse of lyric poetry, downs a handful of reds, guzzles half a pint of cheap bourbon, and lays down next to the creek to die.

 

I think about that Richman piece every time I come across another one of his elitist, you'll-never-eat-here-but-I-will pieces in GQ. Because of how dreadful that Death piece was, I take even greater pleasure turning the pages past his drivel.

 

I don't think it's elitist. He can be hilarious and I don't think he's trying to give us News You Can Use but to transport us to unusual places that, yes, we'll probably never experience ourselves. It's meant as entertainment. I have no desire to eat some of the food or visit those cities, but it's a vicarious experience. The recent one on Japanese pizza was great.

 

My GQ subscription lapsed long ago, but I always really enjoyed his food pieces, but I'm a big fan of food writing.

 

Seemed like a pretty fair - and well written - critique to me.

 

Fenian, I love you, you old bastard!

 

Now THAT'S good stuff.