2008 Woodie Awards
Sports Media Too Often Become The Story
Nick Schimmer/Muleskinner
Issue date: 1/18/07 Section: Sports
- Page 1 of 1
I remember the first time I realized I wanted to be a sports writer. I was 10-years-old and my father took me to Wrigley Field for my birthday to watch my Cardinals beat the Cubs, in what is one of the best rivalries in all of baseball.
There was something magical about that midsummer trip to one of the true landmarks of the game. The ivy on the wall was a deep green, the stadium was packed and the game, a 5-3 nail biter which the Cardinals won, showed everything that is beautiful about the game.
I knew at that point that baseball needed to be a part of my life forever. As I grew older and my athletic ability waned, I chose to cover the sport out of pure love for the game.
As my pending graduation looms near, I look around at the world of sports media, and my feelings are beginning to change.
There is a new emergence of sports writers in the business that have tried to elevate themselves above the game they cover, that feel their personality and opinion is bigger than the business, which has created a decrease in quality sports coverage in America.
I look to ESPN as an example of this. Replacing coverage of events is the constant analysis by marginal former players (i.e., Sean Salisbury, John Kruk), coupled with personalities that act like they are buddies with every player they interview (i.e., Stuart Scott, Brian Kenney).
This god-complex has even reached some of the most hallowed corners of sports. Case in point: the baseball Hall of Fame.
Last week a panel of sports writers, opinions in hand, kept one of the greatest sluggers of our generation, Mark McGwire, out of Cooperstown.
This panel, in light of the current steroid witch hunt in baseball, has tried and convicted an individual on speculation, without the benefit of due process of law.
The Hall of Fame is the measure of an athletes' individual achievements on the field. There has always been an unspoken criterion for each statistical category in baseball, and the home run is no different.
By looking at the players that are currently enshrined, all who have hit more than 500 homeruns are in the Hall. All of them except McGwire.
These writers, instead of being respectful of the opportunity to cast a vote, have taken a stance that they are bigger than the game, and will color outside the lines if they so choose.
They have chosen to be distracted by media hype, the revolving door of making news where there isn't news, for the purpose of getting themselves over in the business.
Without McGwire, the very writers that voted him out might be unemployed.There is one job and one job only, which we, as sportswriters have. We are charged with providing the average fan with coverage of the event that we are so privileged to attend.
When we start to blur those lines, and attempt to become bigger than the sport we cover, we create an injustice to the discipline and smear the achievements of the greats before us.
There was something magical about that midsummer trip to one of the true landmarks of the game. The ivy on the wall was a deep green, the stadium was packed and the game, a 5-3 nail biter which the Cardinals won, showed everything that is beautiful about the game.
I knew at that point that baseball needed to be a part of my life forever. As I grew older and my athletic ability waned, I chose to cover the sport out of pure love for the game.
As my pending graduation looms near, I look around at the world of sports media, and my feelings are beginning to change.
There is a new emergence of sports writers in the business that have tried to elevate themselves above the game they cover, that feel their personality and opinion is bigger than the business, which has created a decrease in quality sports coverage in America.
I look to ESPN as an example of this. Replacing coverage of events is the constant analysis by marginal former players (i.e., Sean Salisbury, John Kruk), coupled with personalities that act like they are buddies with every player they interview (i.e., Stuart Scott, Brian Kenney).
This god-complex has even reached some of the most hallowed corners of sports. Case in point: the baseball Hall of Fame.
Last week a panel of sports writers, opinions in hand, kept one of the greatest sluggers of our generation, Mark McGwire, out of Cooperstown.
This panel, in light of the current steroid witch hunt in baseball, has tried and convicted an individual on speculation, without the benefit of due process of law.
The Hall of Fame is the measure of an athletes' individual achievements on the field. There has always been an unspoken criterion for each statistical category in baseball, and the home run is no different.
By looking at the players that are currently enshrined, all who have hit more than 500 homeruns are in the Hall. All of them except McGwire.
These writers, instead of being respectful of the opportunity to cast a vote, have taken a stance that they are bigger than the game, and will color outside the lines if they so choose.
They have chosen to be distracted by media hype, the revolving door of making news where there isn't news, for the purpose of getting themselves over in the business.
Without McGwire, the very writers that voted him out might be unemployed.There is one job and one job only, which we, as sportswriters have. We are charged with providing the average fan with coverage of the event that we are so privileged to attend.
When we start to blur those lines, and attempt to become bigger than the sport we cover, we create an injustice to the discipline and smear the achievements of the greats before us.
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