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Who wrote the best piece on Linsanity?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Alma, Feb 14, 2012.

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Who wrote the best piece on Linsanity

  1. Gregg Doyel, CBS

    8.7%
  2. Rick Reilly, ESPN

    4.3%
  3. Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo!

    26.1%
  4. Jay Caspian Kang, Grantland

    4.3%
  5. Harvey Araton, NY Times

    4.3%
  6. Jason Whitlock, Fox Sports

    8.7%
  7. Mike Lupica, NY Daily News

    4.3%
  8. Pablo S. Torre, SI

    30.4%
  9. Bruce Arthur, National Post

    8.7%
  1. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    I don't give Rick Reilly clicks. I read the other eight columns. In the order of Alma's list:

    Gregg Doyel: He's one of my favorite columnists working today, but this one missed. I would have flipped this column on its head. The Calhoun comment would have made a terrific lead for a column that makes the exact same point. I hate question leads, and I hate when columnists load a column with questions. Doyel could have asked one of the people he calls out. He works for CBS. The access wouldn't have been much of a problem. There's a lot of good ideas here. Doyel always has good ideas. But it bothered me that he didn't work any of them out. He didn't even really attempt to work any of them out.

    Adrian Wojnarowski: He's another of my favorite columnists working today. (I'm not just saying that; he and Doyel are among my 10 favorites.) I thought he mostly delivered on this one. He took swipes at those trying to take credit and those being given credit. His column didn't take us anywhere, but it explained the path as well as anything I've read on Lin. It mixed the right amount of lyrical writing with Wojnarowski's trademark edge, all while remaining clear and consise. This column was fewer than 800 words, and it said a whole lot. My biggest criticism as I was reading was that leading with Morey seemed unnatural, but he turned it around well and got a nice cap on the piece.

    Jay Caspian Kang: Grantland's lack of competent editing is really tragic, as it shows itself in almost every story. Kang is the emblematic Grantlander, a writer with clear talent who has never been reined in at all, paints with broad strokes and operates in his own frame of reference, a Bill Simmons hallmark. The difference is, many of Simmons' readers have absorbed every word he's written for years. All of that said, this was the best piece I've read by Kang. The section where he broke down Lin's actual abilities was surprisingly digestable without being oversimplified. Then I got to the first subhead. Running journal? God, I hate running journals. It's just in-game notes, typed. It's lazy and often leads to incoherence. "The Knicks fans start chanting Jer-e-my, Jer-e-my." And here, I thought they just were chanting Jeremy. It's interesting he mentions Pablo S. Torre in a veiled way. I thought the column should have ended after that paragraph, for sure.

    Harvey Araton: I'm getting redundant here, but Harvey Araton is another one of my 10 favorite sports columnists in the country. This might be the worst thing I've read by him in years. I didn't like his lead or lead quote at all. I didn't like the Justin Tuck quote or the Giants references. I hated the "new hit reality show" line and the Tea Party mention. Araton is at his best, normally, when he's writing about the NBA. Read his columns on the lockout. He's really terrific, the best the Times has to offer, in my opinion. I'm not sure if this was written on deadline, which would provide an excuse. I don't think it was. Almost the entire column focuses on the Lakers game, but it ran Sunday, after the Timberwolves game. I thought Araton went skin-deep on a story in which any writer can go skin-deep. There was nothing to see here, which is tremendously disappointing considering the writer and the newspaper we're discussing.

    Jason Whitlock: He's not one of my 10 favorite columnists, though I like his points of view on many issues. His writing has conveyed his bloated sense of self-importance for years, and this column was particularly self-aggrandizing. Maybe some readers thought Whitlock needed to address his racist tweet before he dug into a column on Lin, but I'm sure many of the readers coming from MSN.com hadn't even heard about his tweet. Some -- gasp -- may not have even heard of Jason Whitlock. In breaking down the media narrative about Tebow, he took some liberalities. But he also made a few good points that needed to be made. But when it came time to discuss Amar'e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony, he really skimped on real arguments and starting throwing out catchphrases, which bothered me. His analysis of actual basketball was poor and poorly argued. And his writing is always lazy, but that's his thing.

    Mike Lupica: Loopy has two writing tones: god-maker and world-destroyer. That's fine, but it needs to be understood by anyone reading him. The problem here is that he loaded up on quotes that didn't mean much of anything except to further the god-making initiative, and he failed to provide any insight into Lin whatsoever. Here's what I got from this column: Loopy knows people at Harvard, and Harvard people know Jeremy Lin, and Loopy clearly doesn't know Jeremy Lin, so Loopy lets the Harvard people talk about Jeremy Lin. This column is so skin-deep it makes Araton's piece look like a back-of-the-issue Sports Illustrated profile.

    Pablo S. Torre: I really don't like comparing this to the other pieces because it's not a column and because it's for a magazine, which means there's an entirely different and superior editing process that it made its way through and it had different intentions than the other pieces, which were all parts of Lin story packages. This was meant to stand alone. Anyway, the lead is absolutely terrific. Torre had a leg up in that he had written about Lin probably as extensively as anyone in the industry prior to Feb. 3. There was some overwriting, mostly just in wasted words, to which the best Sports Illustrated scribes rarely fall victim. But it was very, very well written and structured for its purposes. I loved the detail about the clips of Tyson Chandler running off screens and the interview with Dan McGeary. The kicker was excellent. There was the proper amount of basketball analysis. Torre did a very, very good job. I liked this much more than his puff piece on Harvard basketball almost two years ago.

    Bruce Arthur: He probably is not one of my 10 favorite columists, but he's in the top 20. But Arthur has a tendency to overwrite. I'm sure it was an immense feeling being there for Tuesday's game, and he was trying to convey that while writing on deadline. It's understandble. But there were a lot of loose phrases and words and even sentences in this column, particularly in the first two paragraphs. Things got considerably smoother after that, and I particularly liked the line about the Latrell Sprewell poster. What a fun, telling detail. This kid isn't perfect, Loopy. The column was what you'd hope your columnist would write on deadline. But he needs to learn how to spell "center."

    I liked Torre's piece the most. But, on a curve based on deadline and editing, I thought Wojnarowski's was the best. Arthur's probably falls third. And Kang, particularly on that curve where he gains all sorts of points for lack of editing, had the fourth-best column. I thought he had a lot of moments of success and might have even had the best piece with a hard line editor, who ideally would have cut the main column by several hundred words and removed the running diary entirely. I didn't like the other columns, frankly.
     
  2. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    IJAG, I'll see your 700 words and raise you 500.

    And Alma, I'd love to know which column you voted for and why.

    I disagree (obviously, based on my choices). The portmanteau has become ubiquitous. It means something to people at this point. It's a brief way to describe the hype surrounding Jeremy Lin. Making up your own puns on Lin's name in a column would be hacky, perhaps unless you happen to be Jim Murray.

    For the record: Gregg Doyel, Jason Whitlock and Mike Lupica were the only writers not to use the portmanteau in their listed columns.
     
  3. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    Lupica columns are one cliche after another. He has been using the same theme forever:

    "But as much as this is a basketball story, a New York story, a story about an Asian-American kid who has come from the end of the bench to become this kind of sudden star, the best part of it is that it is an American story."

    Plug in the sport ... a baseball story, a New York story, a story about a kid from Puerto Rico who moved to Washington Heights when he was one.
     
  4. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    Really Mike Vaccaro should be added to the poll. His string of Lin columns has consistently been right on target. What Vaccaro is able to bring to table is a vast knowledge of NY Knick history that allows him to put this Linn run in proper historical perspective.

    Toronto game column:
    http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/knicks/garden_falls_in_love_with_surprising_B8jQDfKqOSL3YtQW4mPtHN

    Laker game column

    http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/knicks/garden_falls_in_love_with_surprising_B8jQDfKqOSL3YtQW4mPtHN
     
  5. 3OctaveFart

    3OctaveFart Guest

    More than half these guys don't get clicks from me.
     
  6. TigerVols

    TigerVols Well-Known Member

    The best one is not even on the list:

    http://www.thepostgame.com/features/201202/jeremy-lin-nba-new-york-knicks-harvard-taiwan
     
  7. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    When will Linsanity turn into what Vinsanity became?
     
  8. Alma

    Alma Well-Known Member

    I tried to take stuff from the last 24-48 hours, post-Lakers.
     
  9. silent_h

    silent_h Member

    I just want to concur: awesome. Especially the Whitlock part.
     
  10. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    Thanks to IJAG's post I took a minute to read the Torre lede, and it is fantastic. Painting the picture of Lin bouncing from place to place was very good because I wrongly assume all these guys sleep in palaces or the Plaza.
     
  11. lcjjdnh

    lcjjdnh Well-Known Member

    Not that writing and ideas are wholly disconnected--the quality of Torre's lede, for instance, stems in part from his reporting--but I find it interesting so much of the conversation revolves around the former instead of the latter. Obviously, sound writing helps convey ideas, but, for day-to-day coverage at least, I find I care less and less about the entertainment or aesthetic value of the writing beyond that.

    Also, how much weight should we give each of these stories within the writers' larger bodies of work? For instance, is Whitlock somewhat excused from fully articulating his comments at the end of the piece given he's fully explained his views on these issues many times before? Ideally, his newest piece would link to his old columns on the topic, but maybe the Internet should give writers more freedom in trusting their readers either: 1.) they always follow them; or 2.) can look old the stories. It seems like a lot of people are still focused on shoe-horning old story models into a medium that allows for people to digest information in new and more efficient ways. (And, to be fair, Whitlock probably wasn't thinking about that--he, admittedly, just doesn't care all that much about writing. More just throwing this out there as an open question.)
     
  12. BillyT

    BillyT Active Member

    Hasn't been written yet.

    Won't be written for a while.

    This are all, in effect, "game stories" in that it's still in progress.
     
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