DMN update

[lone star scribe]

Add another name to escapees from the Belo Death Star. Steve Salazar, who has been there two years on the copy desk, is leaving for a night sports ed gig at the Charlotte Observer.

 

[standman]

kritter

I think Blackistone gets a bad rap about race because 95 percent of the time he is the columnist willing to write about it and most people are uncomfortable discussing race in a public forum. Blackistone is equally disliked because he is a liberal in the heart of Bush Country and tends to write more left-leaning columns than most sports journalists in the state. Just today, he wrote a column praising the sports labor union. Texas is as anti-union a state there is in the country.

 

[Blushing]

The columnists have been a weakness for the DMN for a while. Blackistone is not highly regarded among his peers either, mostly because he doesn't work very hard and isn't very professional. Nor will Cowlishaw be missed. He doesn't write well, rarely has an opinion and never entertains.

 

[standman]

Have to agree with you on Cowlishaw. Nice guy, but there are too many columns that just make me shrug and say Ok, so what? That's not good for somebody paid to provoke thought or emotion.

 

[Kritter47]

Standman - I was a left-leaning liberal in the heart of Bush country during college, and I didn't like most of his stuff. I thought he tried to inject race/controversey/the man keeping everyone down into places it had no business being for the sake of a "controversial" column. I also don't think he is a particularly good writer, but that's all a matter of personal taste.

He came in and talked to my class when I was in college, and I could see how people are put off by him in person as well. His whole speech revolved around "what obstacles I overcame to get to where I am." Good for a PR speech, not as appropriate for a group of budding journalists who want to know how to reach the level he's at.

 

[standman]

Well if he overcame the obstacles, didn't he give you an idea of what it took to reach his level?

Frankly, anybody coming into the business today would have to overcome a ton of obstacles considering the climate of the industry right now. I would be brutally honest to let folks know what they face before entering the business. Then, I would give them a few pointers.

 

[Kritter47]

Yes and no. In my opinion (and from what I could gather, the opinion of my classmates), it gave us the idea we should be thankful to be white and interested in journalism becuase it would make the path easier for us. It did give us a sense of how people can be really unreasonable, but not of the universal obstacles we'd all have to face.

It was very "me"-centric, in my opinion. Here's my good stories, here's all the people who tried to keep me down, here's why you should be happy people like me are here to blaze the path for you. He spent about 15 minutes complaining about Mark Cuban and his e-mail interview policy too.

Now my 75 minute experience doesn't define him as a person, obviously. It could have just been a bad day. But it certainly affected my view of him and makes me slightly more cynical regarding his columns.

 

[standman]

Fair enough.

I just think that when it comes to the subject of race, black columnists often are in a no win situation. If they don't address the subject, few white columnists will and an often legitimate issue goes away. If they do, they're accused of writing about black and white isues. A columnist may not write about a racial subject but once or twice a year and when he/she does, the response is "here we go again."

People may look at a situation at say a Kansas State where the Ron Prince is black and mention almost in passing that he is one of a handful of black football coaches around the country and talk about the low number of blacks in that position. But it may be a black columnist who points out that both of Prince's coordinators are also black and that K-State may be the only D-1 school in the country with two black coordinators.

Should it matter? In an idealistic world it shouldn't. But since most assistant coaches moving up to head coach status are coordinators, Prince is doing something to put black coaches in a position other than head recruiter. He is putting them in a position to be a head coach if they perform. When you watch a game on television, they don't point out the stressed out receivers coach in the press box, they show the coordinator and that makes him visible to athletic directors who make the hire.

I guess it's a matter of opinion if that's a case of here we go again or a case of putting things in perspective?

 

[lone star scribe]

Like him or not, Blackistone was the moral conscience of the DMN columnists, and if his topics made readers uncomfortable, then he was probably doing his job. There's no doubt talking about race still makes people uncomfortable.

 

[Tracy Ringolsby]

Yep, Blackistone went through a lot to become a sports columnist. He was a business writer who demanded a bonus of close to $100,000 plus a raise nearly double salary so he could have a desk in sports, sit there scrolling the wire and find subjects to write about. Heaven forbid he would go to the stadium or field or arena and actually talk to someone face to face. No, he would call the beat guys and ask them to run quotes because he couldn't get out there to talk to anyone on his own. Yep, he was the conscience of the DMN columnists, which is not praise of him but rather an indictment of what Yates has allowed the DMN to become.

 

[gandhithegreat]

Yep, Blackistone went through a lot to become a sports columnist. He was a business writer who demanded a bonus of close to $100,000 plus a raise nearly double salary so he could have a desk in sports, sit there scrolling the wire and find subjects to write about. Heaven forbid he would go to the stadium or field or arena and actually talk to someone face to face. No, he would call the beat guys and ask them to run quotes because he couldn't get out there to talk to anyone on his own. Yep, he was the conscience of the DMN columnists, which is not praise of him but rather an indictment of what Yates has allowed the DMN to become.

yeah...I think Stand would agree, Blackistone as the moral conscience of DMN columnists he was not. Poke is correct about how Yates has allowed the section to deteriorate.

Blackistone was always good to me as a clerk, but he "big-timed" me (as did Cowlishaw) at a Mavs game one night in the last couple of years. I really couldn't care less, but I think it was indicative of the type of person and writer he had become and that was a sad story. Cowlishaw was always that way. When your ****ty to people you perceive as the little guy, you better be willing to pay the consequences. As a side note, NBA beat guy David Moore was around for both of the "big-time" episodes and noted the silliness with me.

I just hate all this for people like Joe "Cheeks" Jansen.

 

[joe king]

Hey, that reminds me. Someone on one of the earlier threads on this subject said David Moore was going to be shown the door. He seems like a real good guy from my dealings with him, and I was wondering if anyone knew what was up with him. Is he in or out, and if he's out, where might he go?

 

[jackfinarelli]

Since much of the commentary on some of the DMN columnists has gone negative, here's a contrarian view.

I open the DMN sports page on the Internet about 4 or 5 times a week. I don't see the paper physically because I live about 2000 miles from Dallas and don't take the paper delivered to my driveway. Whenever I see a new column by Kevin Blackistone, Tim Cowlishaw or Gerry Fraley, I open it and read it. Far more often than not, I find them worth reading i.e. entertaining and informative.

If the statements here on SportsJournalists.com are correct and DMN were to lose all three of these guys, their sports section would be seriously diminished in terms of quality.

 

[lone star scribe]

I have to concur. Like them or not, three of their four columnists jumping ship has to hurt the DMN's product. Kevin Sherrington is the lone holdover.

 

[zman82]

i agree on some of the blackistone fronts but he was always the guy i read first. and isn't that what columnists are on board to do? i've said before that he wasn't the same writer he was 5-10 years ago, but he's the best the dmn had and that obviously says something about the section these days. in my opinion sherrington is a better storyteller than columnist, so i think they will be hurting when it comes to rants and raves. this place sounds really f---ed up now and that's sad considering it was reading this section, along with my SIs, growing up that made me want to become a journalist.

 

[Jesus_Muscatel]

Like him or not, Blackistone was the moral conscience of the DMN columnists, and if his topics made readers uncomfortable, then he was probably doing his job. There's no doubt talking about race still makes people uncomfortable.

I think Mr. Rhoden sets a standard nobody else -- Kevin, Terry Moore, anybody -- could approach on this front.

I have found Kevin to be an interesting guy, a good guy, and a good read. And yes, I also like the fact that he never big timed me, either.

I knew Kevin Sherrington back in the day, when he was in Houston. Also a good guy. He also has a point of view, and makes it effectively. I like reading his column.

After that, well, Randy Galloway's still the man in those parts. Karma's a *****, DMN.