Sunday, November 01, 2009
The (d)evolution of the American sportswriter
For any professional communicator, apathy is a fate worse than death. Throughout history, but no more evident than in today's media market, having the ability to evoke some sort of emotion from an audience - in any format and across any topic - is key to survival.
Literacy was always big in the Salas household. I grew up reading Sports Illustrated, and I consider myself privileged to have considered great works by tons of acclaimed people you've likely never heard of. I'd read everything from recollections of the Super Bowl experience, to comments about cricket, to essays on the emerging interest in some new concoction known as free agency. Even before my time, I'd obtain older pieces from columnists as far back as the 1940's, spinning tales of the golden ages of baseball and boxing.
Their words flowed slowly and gracefully, like honey off a wooden spoon.
The styles of the older sportswriters were generally akin, all being engaging, respectful and informative - everything they were taught to be as journalists. Leveraging humor (God forbid) was always tenuous, because with not everyone having that ability, if mismanaged it might depreciate their work. So they played it safe by playing it straight.
Fast forward to today: it's the age of reality television, an overabundance of pornography, and a culture not only completely happy with, but in constant demand of, replete voyeurism. This is spurned on by affordable consumer technology empowering practically anyone with near-realtime multiplatform immediacy and an equally simple ability to become an active reporter themselves.
The profession has morphed, but the demands on a writer to serve in ways that forces people to react to their creations remains as strong as ever.
Sportswriters of years past were scribes, true and distinct. They were gentleman scholars. Expert storytellers both of events taking place on the field or court of play, as well as the unseen drama unfolding off it. They were masters of the craft of creating poetry through their retelling multiple angles stories of athletics. It's a role that I considered a venerated art form, a modern-day sophist.
Today, sportswriters are largely only as good as their last punchline. It's all about how well you can smacktalk, namedrop, be referential to pop culture, and how many one-liners you can fit into an 800-word contribution. Today's sportswriter functions as more stand-up comedian than reporter. The older generation that's still around and clinging to their time-honored axiology are seen as old hat and irrelevant by today's audiences. Hence, no response.
My favorite writers today all have a signature edginess about their writing that lets them standout from their peers: Bill Simmons. Rick Reilly. Tom Rinaldi. Jim Rome. Christine Brennan. Max Kellerman. Keith Olbermann. Edwin Pope.
Even the great Tony Kornheiser, of whom I'm a huge fan, has massaged his natural wit to be punchier through biting and topical sarcasm, to stay relevant to a readerbase that expects and demands controversy - if not from the subject matter at hand, then by the people relaying it. Art just reflects society's expectations, because inline with the decline of Western civilization, kids today just don't know any better.
It's the direct result of the death of the newspaper industry and the rise in integrated TV and new media formats and applications. There simply are too many sources now to consider; to be distinct and secure eyeballs on a daily basis, sportswriters have to take an angle as being funny, daring or downright rude that'll lock you into consuming their stuff and formulating an opinion one way or the other that gets you to come back.
And let's not neglect the ESPN Influence, wherein everything the network does is considered the gold standard of sports journalism. Their every move heavily drives what is seen as acceptable for the masses; the ubiquitous catch phrases, clever references and gimmicky running gags pressure their print counterparts to follow suit in that format.
Lest they be cast into the purgatory that is reader indifference.
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According to some custom essay that Sports journalism is a form of journalism that reports on sports topics and events. While the sports department within some newspapers has been mockingly called the toy department, because sports journalists do not concern themselves with the 'serious' topics covered by the news desk, sports coverage has grown in importance as sport has grown in wealth, power and influence.
Sports journalism is an essential element of any news media organization. Sports journalism includes organizations devoted entirely to sports reporting — newspapers such as L'Equipe in France, La Gazzetta dello Sport in Italy, Marca in Spain, and the now defunct Sporting Life in Britain, American magazines such as Sports Illustrated and the Sporting News, all-sports talk radio stations, and television networks such as Eurosport, ESPN and The Sports Network (TSN).
Sports journalism is an essential element of any news media organization. Sports journalism includes organizations devoted entirely to sports reporting — newspapers such as L'Equipe in France, La Gazzetta dello Sport in Italy, Marca in Spain, and the now defunct Sporting Life in Britain, American magazines such as Sports Illustrated and the Sporting News, all-sports talk radio stations, and television networks such as Eurosport, ESPN and The Sports Network (TSN).
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: November 27, 2009 6:12 AM
: November 27, 2009 6:12 AM Links to this post:
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