The game plan

How sports journalism can rally from certain ruin

Ajitpaul Mangat, Staff

The subject of sports journalism has quietly but rapidly become one of the hot button issues in the 21st-century sports world. As the rectitude and quality of media coverage in all other spectrums of news has agonizingly degenerated, those authentically solicitous and passionate about sports have become intent on ensuring this degradation does not occur to their sanctuary from the iniquity and prosaicness of reality.

Existing as one of these perturbed individuals, I have proactively developed an easy-to-follow three-step plan that can divert sports journalism from its ruinous trajectory.

The always-perspicacious and ingenuous Hunter S. Thompson — a notable and esteemed sports journalists himself — in a piece for Page 2, the über-chic and popular subsidiary of ESPN’s website, once described sports journalists “as a rude and brainless subculture of fascist drunks” and “a gang of vicious monkeys jacking off in a zoo cage and more disgusting by nature than maggots oozing out of the carcass of a dead animal.”

Written in 2000, this statement was yet more prophetic than fact as the rude and brainless subculture of the digital sports “journalism” world was just getting started. One can only imagine what Thompson would say now about the newfangled sports journalists popping up on the Internet.

Having been born with a peerless, evocative imagination I will do just that, which conveniently segues into the first part of my plan.

Step 1: Ignore the sports blogosphere.

The blogosphere is regimented by idiotic cockroaches thrusting aimlessly at keyboards.

Ignorant pop psychology, evasion of personal privacy, a guy named Perez Hilton who knows nothing about anything — from what I can gather this is what the blogosphere has given society.

Is this the future sports journalism sees for itself? The biggest news stories that sports blogs have reported in the past few months have been: the discovery that Tom Brady, the all-pro quarterback of the New England Patriots, wears a New York Yankees cap and that Kobe Bryant was going to leave the Los Angeles Lakers, then was not, then was, and finally was not. This information is so unimportant the need for instant notification is completely unnecessary. Delaying such reports would have deprived the sports fan of nothing. The fates of either player or the teams they play for, after all, were completely unaffected. A necessity for sports blogs may occur in the future but until that time I resolve we ignore them completely.

Chuck Klosterman in his Esquire magazine column, “Klosterman’s America,” recently weighed in on this growing debate. Proving himself to be an astute individual, he argued against the argument model — made most famous by Pardon The Interruption (PTI) — proliferating our television and radio sports stations. He points out that “not everything is a debate.” There is no justifiable reason to debate whether “Donovan McNabb had a right to be offended that the Eagles used their first pick on a QB [Kevin Kolb],” since “McNabb had expressed nothing to suggest he was offended.” Too true, Chuck.

But why stop there? There is another, even more detestable reason, to hate this programming, as the next step of my plan demonstrates.

Step 2: Muzzle the talking heads.

One of the charms of reading a sports story is the knowledge that the majority of professional sports writers are well-trained and knowledgeable about the topic. Beat writers essentially live with the teams they cover. More prestigious writers, having progressed from working as beat writers, typically hone in on an individual sport and become maximal experts regarding it.

This expertise is lacking in many argument-based sports programming. Take PTI, for example. Co-hosts Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon are not experts in any sport. Before PTI Kornheiser was best known for his sometimes humorous, self-deprecation — writing for the Washington Post and hosting a show on ESPN Radio — and Wilbon covered a gamut of sports for the Washington Post. Consequently, the show just acts to aggrandize their limitation of knowledge. They breeze through a cornucopia of subjects, and when the argument gets interesting they switch topics, since a topic often gets less than 60 seconds of consideration. There is no realism to this format and certainly no novel or riveting ideas bandied about. There are a few examples of engrossing, enlightening argument models (i.e. The Sports Reporters) where topics are given proper consideration and experts are involved, but PTI and its brand of inferior clones would be best muzzled.

The sports world has become so fantasy enamoured that it is almost impossible to find any individuals on my side of the debate. Still I believe wholly in the final aspect of my plan.

Step 3: Stop reporting on fantasy sports.

Imagine someone gives you the following fantasy football statistics of two NFL quarterbacks: Player A has 75 points and Player B has 41 points. Now if they ask you, who is a better player? You’d certainly answer Player A. What if I told you Player A is Chad Pennington who has lead the New York Jets to a 1-7 record, and is likely to be benched due to his poor play and that Player B is Vince Young (Tennessee Titans) who has lead his team to an unexpected 5-2 record and won the NFL Rookie of the Year award last season. Would you then want to change your selection?

This is just one example of how playing fantasy sports and understanding sports from this perspective can corrupt one’s proper judgement of reality. What makes a great athlete and a great fantasy athlete are two completely different characteristic sets. It is not too big of a stretch to thus believe an individual engrossed in fantasy sports or a novice sports fan whose knowledge primarily resonates from fantasy sports will develop a worse understanding of sports, which could lessen his or her enjoyment of them. This seems reason enough for sports journalists to stop reporting on fantasy sports.

Can this three-step plan actually save sports journalism? Possibly. Even if it did, I would never insist on any compensation. Knowledge that sports would remain a liberating, entertaining sanctuary would be compensation enough.