Sports journalism today is at once better than it’s ever been and also complete garbage. With the continued rise of ESPN and digital media, reporting grows continually more pervasive and investigative. More than ever, however, writers beat to death the same few stories. As is usually the case with life, more is not necessarily better.
The time has come for the revolution! Let’s not let the major sports media networks berate us again and again with the same topics. Most stories or “inside scoops” contribute little besides one sportswriter parroting what another said earlier that day.
How do I loathe thee, repetitive sports coverage? Let me count the ways!
You treat Michael Vick like he is spawn of the devil, vilify him as the most nefarious criminal in years, wonder if he should be given another chance. As if sportswriters should be the ones to answer these questions.
Whatever happened to the American justice system? Shouldn’t we let that do its job of deciding an appropriate punishment? In fact, the justice system has already spoken: Vick will be released in a few months. He did the crime, and he’s paying the time. Let him be. If he proves he’s learned his lesson, and his talents still are valuable, we should give him another chance.
It’s especially easy to root against Vick — and, perhaps, take solace in his demise — as Wahoos. Vick rightfully is given a great deal of credit for rejuvenating the football program of our arch rival, that “other” ACC school in Virginia. Let’s not, though, vent too much bitterness about just one immature athlete’s mistakes — mistakes, mind you — that didn’t endanger the lives of other humans the way that drunk driving or domestic abuse — two crimes other athletes are sometimes caught doing — do while receiving much less coverage.
Another thing that sportswriters just won’t shut up about are superstars whose braggadocio shame the game. Enough already! Even superstars whose exuberance is playful and endearing, like Shaquille O’Neal and Chad “Ocho Cinco” Johnson, get a bit too much attention.
It seems a player’s headline stock rises to ridiculous levels whenever a scandal hits. When off-the-field controversies start getting too much coverage, it results in even more coverage. The media talks about the scandals too much and then talks about the fact that the media is talking about the scandals so much. Eventually, every detail, big or small, of every controversy becomes headline news when it shouldn’t be.
Plaxico Burress’s ridiculous club antics, OJ Simpson’s absurd misadventures, Kobe Bryant’s sexual misconduct case: I got tired of these stories after just a day or two. Considering each of those stories had a shelf life of a few months, I wanted to make like that guy in the movie Pi did with his power drill by the time the media moved on.
Another story that just wouldn’t die was Michael Phelps and that photograph of him inhaling from a bong. It received roughly 400 times the coverage it should have. It is well-documented that Phelps enjoys the party scene, so it shouldn’t have been received with nearly the shock it has received.
And, going with the thread of illegal substances, we come to one of the biggest, most over-covered topics of the past decade. At the mere mention of this one word, every sportswriter becomes a vulture and a moral judge, and the media as a whole turns into its own acrid doppelgänger. Steroids.
“Performance-enhancing substances,” we are led to believe, are the great downfall of American sports, the greatest shame to healthy athletic competition since the Black Sox scandal of 1919.
Never mind that segregation kept some of the best athletes out of pro sports for decades, nor the days when spitballs and altering balls with sandpaper would receive barely a second glance. A lot of the substances have been gradually banned, and major league sports don’t always agree on what substance is allowed and what isn’t allowed. It’s a confusing, twisted situation.
Athletes, since the dawn of man’s competitive nature, have always been sneaky in their efforts to try to top other athletes. No, steroids aren’t natural or healthy or conducive to honest competition. Then again, that can be said of a lot of strategies and training that happens in sports. Now that the proper testing and reporting procedures are in place, we should all move forward. No asterisks needed.
If we insist on continuing the witch hunt, though, who’s to say it should stop at steroids? Why not go for anyone who uses modern, lab-refined protein shakes?
We can even take it beyond consumed substances. Golf clubs nowadays are so advanced and precisely designed, it gives the pros a leg up on golfers from the past. Should we ban and test for performance-enhancing golf clubs?
Anyway, I see the irony in a sports columnist taking time to criticize the points sports columnists talk too much about. And it really should come as no surprise that ESPN usually works something like a cross between TMZ and my angry uncle who rants whenever he gets the chance, as that’s how America likes its journalism: gossipy and angry.
But enough is enough! I’m going to do what I can to make sports media a more proactive and productive system, not something my mom rolls her eyes at whenever I discuss pursuing it as a career. Anyone who follows sports closely knows how much more worthwhile the field can be.
You should work to improve it, too. Turn off the TV whenever a trashy or over-covered story comes on SportsCenter. Stay away from sensationalist stories online.
Oh, and you know what the worst sports media cliché is? Complaining.
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