The Politics Of Sportswriting
By K. Daniel Glover | October 5, 2009
Jay Nordlinger, the senior editor of National Review, has a new pet peeve. For months, he has been lamenting the absence of political "safe zones" -- places in society where people leave politics at the door.
It started with a pre-Christmas complaint about an outburst of Obamania at a Carnegie Hall concert he attended. He followed that post a couple of weeks later with a column dedicated to similar complaints from readers about Garrison Keillor, theater performers, comedians and more. Several months later, a pro-President Obama/anti-President Bush comment at the New York Philharmonic's Fourth of July concert triggered a third Nordlinger rant.
Nordlinger penned his fourth installment today, this time aiming his ire at sportswriters who insist on getting political. The best part is where he assumed the role of armchair psychologist:
Why do sportswriters do it? Why do they bust out political? I have a theory, and it's an easy theory -- maybe a too-easy one: Sports guys, some of them, may be a bit embarrassed to be sportswriters. So they have to prove they're just as serious -- just as liberal, virtuous, and "engaged" with the world -- as their colleagues on the news and editorial desks. "I may cover the NFL, but hey, I hate Bush as much as you do, I swear."
Or it may just be that they have a platform, and they're going to exploit it. "While I have your attention on Roger Federer, let me tell you what I think of Bush."
And as long as I'm playing shrink, I will hazard something else: You can glimpse the insecurity of sportswriters in the overwriting they do. Many sportswriters are notorious overwriters, larding their prose with similes, metaphors, and other imagined, writerly cleverness. The message? "I may not be writing about the weightiest or most consequential affairs, but you see how smart and lit'rary I am?!"
What astounds me is that their editors repeatedly endorse such bad journalistic behavior by regularly publishing political cheapshots in the sports pages.
K. Daniel Glover is a project manager for Accuracy In Media. He has worked as an editor, writer and new media specialist in the Washington area since 1991, spending most of that time at National Journal and Congressional Quarterly.
3 Comments | Post a Comment
As a 40-year newspaper reporter, columnist and editor, I find nothing wrong with “sports guys” taking their shots at politicos. The “sports guys” votes are equal to everybody else’s—and legitimate, unlike those ACORN—manufactured votes. Mr. Nordinger is never going to be an important journalist, and we should remind him that many of our most-talented writers were from the sports side—-i.e. Grantland Rice, Jim Murry, Red Smith, Arthur Daily, Jimmy Cannon,Ring Lardner, Shirley Povich, Tommy Boswell. On Mr. Nordinger’s side, though, we must admit it has to be incredibly frustrating not to be able to move beyoud such a piece of crap at the National Review.
My sentiments exactly, GWS. Will anybody remember this Nordinger guy when he stops peddling his pee-pee? No! But those writers you mentioned were incredibly talented and will be part of journalism lore forever. Sort of funny, too, because his dribble makes it seem like he’s an embarrassment. Then again, why should we care. Very few people know who he is anyway.
October 6 at 4:28 pm | #1 | Link
Let’s not forget that on ESPN’s “Around The Horn” in March 2004, then-“Chicago Sun-Times” sports columnist Jay Mariotti called for shutting doen FOX Sports Net in the same manner that formed Democratic Presidential Primary candidate Gov. Dr. Howard Dean (later DNC chair) called for shutting down FOX News.
During that same presidential campaign on ESPN’s “Pardon The Interruption”, then “Washington Post” sports columnist Tony Kornheiser expressed his support for Dennis Kucinich.