Pangur recently commented, after the post about Floyd Mayweather:
Bushnell sounds like a standard issue sports journo, a breed even lower than most journos, if that's possible. I especially despise sportswriters, in part because they seem even more p.c. than normal journos, for a variety of reasons.
I agree with Pangur, and have a theory why that's so.
Sportswriters have the same set of biases that other journalists do. Most are, after all, "well-educated" ("well-brainwashed" might be more accurate, especially since most had soft majors like sociology and English and journalism).
And they are surrounded by like-minded people at the newspapers where they work.
And in the same way all politicians dream of being President, all journalists dream of becoming the kind of featured editorialist who weighs in on all the most important issues of the day.
They tend to become a little bored with sports because after a while, there are only so many ways you can report on how games turn out.
So, they squeeze politics into an arena where they simply don't belong. And those of us who want to follow various sports are force fed a bunch of left wing politics with our box scores.
The best example of this is probably ESPN, which has supported BLM, praised Colin Kaepernick, decried "Islamophobia," and supported gay marriage. They've also decried sexism -- while hiring only good-looking women.
The average sports fan doesn't mind a little sex appeal with his sports, but it detracts from his enjoyment of the game to be given a lecture at the same time.
I'd be happy to excuse Henry Bushnell, the sportswriter who wrote that Floyd Mayweather article, on the basis that he's young and naive and recently brainwashed. But the idea that an athlete is going to have a well thought out opinion on the #Metoo movement is as silly as thinking that some actress whose primary qualification is good looks should tell us which Presidential candidate to vote for.
It's not the athlete, or the actor, who's at fault here. It's the journalists who ask them these ridiculous questions, and then take their answers seriously.
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Here's another angle: these writers have the differences between blacks and whites rubbed into their faces day in and day out. If you cover blacks (including athletes) a lot, you tend to notice . . . certain patterns that repeat themselves. These patterns often involve crime, irresponsible behavior with regards to women, and throwing away money on stupid things. Being exposed to this, combined with having to write nice things about these athletes, almost certainly causes some kind of cognitive dissonance. This dissonance is unwelcome, because the writers want to believe good things about these players. They are, after all, part of the reason the writers got into sports. This dissonance creates resentment, but the sportswriters can't do anything about it, so they go full SJW in an attempt to justify what they do and who they spend their lives covering. Thus, the modern sportswriter.
Also, don't forget the baseline level idiocy of sportwriters, remarked upon by Hunter Thompson in this memorable quote:
“Sportswriters are a kind of rude and brainless subculture of fascist drunks whose only real function is to publicize & sell whatever the sports editor sends them out to cover…
Which is a nice way to make a living, because it keeps a man busy and requires no thought at all. The two keys to success as a sportswriter are 1) a blind willingness to believe anything you’re told by the coaches, flacks, hustlers and other “official spokesmen” for the team-owners who provide the free booze… and: 2) a Roget’s Thesaurus, in order to avoid using the same verbs and adjectives twice in the same paragraph.”
http://baltimore.life-of-kings.com/2010/03/hunter-s-thompson-on-sportswriters/
Thompson was in a position to know, having worked in sportswriting before his foray into New Journalism.
Pangur --
That's true too, I hadn't thought of that angle. Hmm. Cognitive dissonance as an explanation for going full SJW. I like that. I have to think that *some* of them must rebel from that mindset and realize that they're engaged in a big farce at one level, and big coverup at another. But I guess that would be pretty small minority.
Luckily this hasn't become a problem with soccer journalism in England. They stick to the game and seem like that's all they really care about. Nor have I seen it in boxing journalism. They are the two sports I follow.
Mayweather is my favourite boxer but he does have a problem with wife beating and domestic abuse.
Steven --
I don't follow soccer, but I haven't noticed it much in boxing, either. It's more a football/basketball/women's sports kind of thing.
I remember when Brittney Griner came out and the media made a huge deal out of the fact that they weren't making a huge deal about it; that's typical:
https://justnotsaid.blogspot.com/2013/04/stereotypes-about-male-and-female.html
I like Mayweather just because he's such an honest, straightforward guy. I don't find him the most exciting boxer to watch, he's incredible defensively but that doesn't make for a lot of excitement. Which is not to denigrate his skills.
Part of the divide is urban verses rural and sports professionally is all urban. Even many big time College programs(Big East) are urban. Cognitive dissonance can also occur when you are interviewing a coach that makes 100 times what you make and your just not that impressed by him. Frankly as I have gotten older(and grouchier!) mostly, coaches come across as nerds. Football nerds but nerds all the same. Moneyball also seriously deflated the journalists too. Now instead of taking their word for it, they cover the team, I can look up a guy's statistics and have a good guess as to how good player x is. You couldn't do that forty years ago and with less sports being televised you had to trust the writer because you didn't even see them play too much. Having typed that, there are really valuable folks covering sports. They get inside scoops are tell you what your team should be doing in free agency before your team does what it does. They are not passive.
Mark --
Yes, coaching (and athletes') salaries are ridiculous these days (and I say that as a free market guy). I've always said the the value of your college education can be correlated to how much the average full professor makes divided by how much the college's head football coach makes.
I don't see most big time coaches as being nerds, I see them as shrewd manipulators and salesmen. Maybe some of the track and swimming and lesser sport coaches are nerds at heart, but when I see those big time college or professional football coaches carry themselves with an air of self-importance rivaling that of a war time four star general, I think, what an actor.
Anyway, to your point, yes, the journalists must be very much aware of the disparity between what they make and what those they interview make, and it must rankle. Especially when they're a lot smarter than those rich people. But then again, that would result in negative coverage, and we don't see that, in fact, the point of this post was, how the sports journalists seem to have swallowed the PC pap whole. (PC in this case meaning that the well paid athletes really *deserve* -- in the intrinsic as well as market sense -- their pay.)
Though I quit watching the NFL a year before the kneeling began I still got news feeds from sports journo's that were screaming social injustice that no one was hiring Colin Kaepernick. Racists! It's a conspiracy!! How about the fact that his ability was declining at an early age and he was becoming a mediocre QB? Then on top of that he became a cancer to the clubhouse and team. The cancer (of SJW) spread to other athletes and the decline in viewership and attendance is really there but rarely gets reported if ever. Fantasy vs reality.
Then there's Bob "Pink Eye" Costas lecturing America against guns during sports broadcasts. Thank you Disney/ABC/ESPN. Bob needs to stop rooting around in his posterior then touching his eye. Little kids do that and get pink eye.
There's a myriad of reasons I've stopped watching professional sports but the awful journalism is an equal part of it. I'm about to get off the college football wagon too. I pretty much just resort to motorcycle racing in the Isle of Man and World Superbike series. There's no politics there. No lecturing on how I should be thinking and to stop being racist/sexist/any-ist.
There are so many sports journo's that if anyone strays from the norm they're cast off and forever banned so most of them follow lockstep and remain mediocre at best. ESPN used to be good, more than 10 years ago. The injection of politics, being PC, becoming SJW's has killed them and the ratings and subsequent layoffs prove it. Politics needs to stay out but Disney/ABC/ESPN can't help themselves and are committing suicide.
We cut the cord last year and no longer give money to the networks. It's liberating.
Not Dave --
I don't follow football either but Kaepernick was impossible to miss. I had the same reaction to him not being hired: isn't the real story that his skills as a QB weren't that great? (I've never followed football but that much was apparent from the article about him.)
Good for you cutting the cord. I've suggested we do it here, but my wife likes watching the news on TV too much.
Mark again,
Perhaps I will readjust my nerdar but I wasn't being precise. Below is my list of coaches.
Pro football coach: My perception of most of them from a great distance is that they give off a slightly weird nerdy vibe. Scripting plays and watching hours and hours of film, they seem to want to out think the opposition. Nothing wrong with that but I wish there was more risk taking and creativity thrown in.
College football coach: Have to recruit so they need to have charisma although a few seem to have the bare minimum. It is hard to lose and have charisma which is the problem with about half the coaches at any given time.
Basketball coaches: All fire and brimstone, very close to the crowd so dynamism is important. Pretty much the opposite of the pro football coach who they would beat up in High School.
Pro Baseball managers: Politicians in a good way. Charisma would help but they have to get along with everyone for 6 months plus Spring training so their personality must wear well.
Mark --
Amusing rundown. The pro football coaches may be nerds at heart but they don't look it for the most part, so it's hard for me to perceive them that way. (And would a bunch of NFLers instinctively respect a guy who weighed 145?) I don't see that much difference between college and pro football coaches (at least not with the big time college programs); but honestly, I'm not a football fan, so my opinion is mostly uninformed.
It's true that NBA coaches tend to be former top basketball players (not all, but a lot of them), whereas the NFL coaches are rarely former top football players. Maybe some of that has to do with the brain damage football players undergo.
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