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Who are your journalism heroes?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Mizzougrad96, May 13, 2011.

  1. 1HPGrad

    1HPGrad Member

    Lewis Grizzard, the Kathy Sue Loudermilk of Southern journalists.
    There is no close second.
     
  2. funky_mountain

    funky_mountain Active Member

    Grantland Rice would have replied, when asked what the score was, "For when the One Great Scorer comes to write against your name, he marks not that you won or lost but how you played the game."

    Anyway, when I was kid, these folks helped inspire me to write about sports:
    Shelby Strother
    Charlie Vincent
    Frank Deford
    Rick Reilly
    Jim Murray
    Dave Kindred
    Curry Kirkpatrick
    Bob Ryan
    Jack McCallum
    John Feinstein

    But there are really so many more , at places large and small, that influenced me in one way or another.
     
  3. imjustagirl

    imjustagirl Active Member

    Charles Pierce [/duh]
     
  4. dooley_womack1

    dooley_womack1 Well-Known Member

    Reading Rick Hummel's gamers for the Cardinals in the Post-Dispatch got me hooked on newspapers. Rusty Todd and Stan Abbott guided me in college to focus on copy editing. I don't know that I've had any heroes since turning pro; at that point, we're all colleagues, and we know well that anyone who helped turn the sausage into breakfast is a hero in his/her own way.
     
  5. Pete Wevurski

    Pete Wevurski Member

    Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, Walter Cronkite, Jim Murray, Dick Young, Frank Deford, Dan Jenkins, Red Smith, Fred Cranwell, Roger Ebert ... I've been privileged to work with a couple of them and have met all the rest ... Later, after having worked with these three, I'd have to add: Allan Malamud, Jerry Izenberg & Leonard Koppett
     
  6. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    Interesting how many columnists come up. Guess that's because we grow up reading them. They're usually the ones who attract us to this.
     
  7. Liut

    Liut Well-Known Member

    Dick Schaap and David Halberstam were and still are major influences.
     
  8. dirtybird

    dirtybird Well-Known Member

    Too young for Povich, but someone gave me his biography in high school. Reading the quote "Brown was served the ball by Milt Plum on a pitch-out and he integrated the Redskins' goal line with more than deliberate speed, perhaps exceeding the famous Supreme Court decree." sent my head spinning in a way I wouldn't fully understand until I got deep into the world of writing.
     
  9. Jake_Taylor

    Jake_Taylor Well-Known Member

    Joe Posnanski, if somebody told me I was a homeless man's Posnanski I would take it as a compliment.

    Rick Reilly, like Mizzou said, the pre-1999 version.

    Buzz Bissinger, not so much for his body of work, but because I read Friday Night Lights and knew I wanted to dive into a subject and write a book like that someday.

    Dave Barry, I don't know if his column is really journalism, but he was in the paper so I'm including him. My high school English teacher told me I was going to be the next Dave Barry. My writing at the time was really influenced by him. The first thing I did every Sunday was read his column syndicated in the local paper. I don't know if I can really do humor like that anymore, and that makes me sad when I think about it.
     
  10. 1HPGrad

    1HPGrad Member

    Two pages of posts and I'm surprised Doyel and Hoppes haven't chimed in to honor, well, Doyel and Hoppes.
     
  11. Mystery Meat II

    Mystery Meat II Well-Known Member

    1) Famous writers who post here
    2) Famous writers who used to post here, with the hope they post here again so we can go back to humping their legs
    3) Posters that we think or hope are famous writers
     
  12. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    Couple of guys I went to college with were obsessed with Hunter S. Thomson, who I had never heard of before taking a magazine writing class in college. Legend had it that they drove to Thomson's home in Colorado and knocked on his door. I can't remember exactly how the story ended, but perhaps something like Thomson answering the door himself, but denying that he was the Good Doctor. Or maybe they just ripped the anecdote off from "Field of Dreams." Not sure.
     
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