From Bill Simmons to Gene Wojciechowski

I’ve been thinking about sports journalism lately, about my own foray into the wild yonder of rhetorical questions, upper bowl-level analysis and long form journalism. To be frank, the writing world is a dizzying array of time lost, editors scorned, peers judged and comments unread. Among the tall giants and bridgeless trolls, where can a writer call home?

It’s understandable for those of us who are not professional journalists to seek guidance, whether by example or by direction, from our favorite scribes. I’ve had an e-mail or two go unnoticed from journalists whose advice I would have greatly cherished, only to take their lack of response as a signal to keep on writing until I was worthwhile to respond to. As a blossoming writer, there are seemingly infinite directions one can take to seek out your dreams. More than likely, we end up mimicking the path set by those we see take steps before us. The question is, which do we follow?

The answer to the question depends on what style of writing each author strives to achieve. Whether by news, research, investigation, opinion, fanside or gimmick, the way an author desires to see his final work changes who he will follow, where he will write and how he will be trained. Many people enjoy the writing of Bill Simmons, and several of his loyal fans are no doubt wishing to copy his style of prose, success and lifestyle.

There are those who roundly denounce Simmons, not just for his gimmicky writing but for his own personal choices regarding subject matter and vanity projects like Grantland.com, choosing to dismiss him as a negligible influence on their world of sports journalism. The detractors of Simmons are many, and I have to admit that in reading some supremely well-written, long-winded material on the Sports Guy I have come to view his body of work with a grain of salt. But even then, can no merit be gained from his efforts?

Criticism for sports journalists doesn’t end with the Bill Simmons’s of the world. No, more respected journalists fall under the spew of fire as well. Tony Kornheiser, one of the more widely-read writers of our time has been the subject of much criticism, mostly for his time on television. Kornheiser has famously feuded with Mike Tirico and his work on the Pardon the Interruption program on ESPN is often subject to gimmicks, bits and little respect for the boundary that most old-school print journalists like Kornheiser usually abide by.

So too have relatively uncontroversial writers been the subject of malaise. Ball Don’t Lie, a blog ran by Yahoo! Sports’ Kelly Dwyer, when searched through Google, returns pages of vitriolic chatter which I personally find hard to understand — not because I feel strongly in favor of Dwyer, but that I’ve read his material for some time and none of it has been so radical I’ve wanted to rattle off an angry post to an Internet message board.

The cream of the crop of classically-trained sports journalists are no strangers to seemingly unforeseen cries for abdication. Gene Wojciechowski,  who recently wrote about the struggles with NCAA investigations at the University of Oregon, has been lambasted by several of my friends who are graduates of Oregon and fans of the Duck football team. The complaints are typical, and typically misplaced; the national media has an East coast bias; the SEC has been cheating this way for years; the connection between Oregon and Nike creates an easy target.

The question arises, can a journalist writing for a specific audience do so without inflaming another?

Really, there are myriad writers that I read and enjoy doing so because they offer different perspectives, different needs at different times. Criticism, on all platforms and from all manner of observers, is numerous and thick with spite, jealousy, bias and ignorance. I read Bill Simmons looking for inane chatter about implausible basketball trades. Sifting through his pop culture references is part of the territory, but the experience is still enjoyable. Reading Kelly Dwyer, Tony Kornheiser and Gene Wojciechowski all come with similar caveats. That a writer is not inheritly part of the story is ludicrous. Failing to understand and sift through their imperfections is not a reflection on them as journalists, but on readers as consumers.

I’ve spent the better part of my writing career as a political journalist, in an online forum no less. The venom that people spew on the Internet is that of ignorance, inconsideration and ill-tempered bullies who act the lion behind their computer screens but play the part of pussycat away from it. Even more concerning is the willingness of individuals to commit to such a hard-line stance about something which, with all due respect to those who base their profession off of it, doesn’t matter.

Sports, and by extension, sports journalism is a thing of folly; when men and women come together to entertain themselves for pleasure or profit, its true core is and always will be of a lighthearted nature. Why people choose to spew against the Simmons’s and the Kornheisers of the world I’ll never understand. Consuming a product is neither mandatory nor recommended if you do not enjoy doing so. Likewise, the direction of a sports journalist searching for their niche will lead them to many paths. Explore those that you enjoy and do away with those that you do not.

In the end, it’s about having fun, isn’t it? Sometimes, I think many of us aren’t so sure.