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This Issue from John Kuczaj, the Chicago Media Examiner:
• Sportswriters Changing Reality
• Musings
Sportswriters Changing Reality
Royko had Slats Grobnik.
John Kass has his legman.
I have Tom.
Unlike Slats, he's real. Unlike legman, he isn't on the payroll. In fact, Tom's my best friend and closest advisor. Tom and I have insightful and intelligent conversations about everything--including the media and especially this column. I bounce a lot of ideas off Tom, and he gives me honest opinions. Brutally honest. He gives me honest criticism of my writing. I like that. He doesn't agree with me on a lot of issues. I like that too. Where was I going with this? Oh, yeah. Tom's messing with my head, and that's a good thing.
It was during the Sammy Sosa cork scandal that Tom's views became a little more focused for me, and my mind expanded. We were talking about how the sportswriters condemned Sosa as a cheater and refused to believe it was the one and only time he ever used a corked bat. Tom brought up a point that he's had for a while, which is that the mainstream media is largely controlled by a few huge corporations, who in turn, set policy on coverage. On the surface, you might say that's a tad paranoid until you actually look and see that the mainstream media IS controlled by a handful of conglomerates and they HAVE acted in their own self-interest. I pointed out that Sammy Sosa had a squeaky-clean image and it was unfair that the sportswriters would ignore the good he'd done in the past and focus on this one incident. "Yeah, but it was the sportswriters who created Sosa in the first place," Tom said. Time stood still and a veil was lifted as Tom explained. Sportswriters created and nurtured the image of Sosa as a clean-living happy-go-lucky guy. They wrote countless articles about his exploits, about his fans, about what a nice guy he was. The sportswriters built Sosa up, the marketers used that image for endorsements, and then the sportswriters were betrayed. Sosa did something to shatter his squeaky-clean image. The image that sportswriters created and nurtured.
Sosa had to pay.
So now, the sportswriters have to get back at Sosa. Why? Because what Sosa did was a personal attack on their credibility. Why? Because they wrote all those positive articles about Sammy over the years and now they look foolish. Rick Telander acts like Sosa assaulted a family member. Steve Rosenbloom will now refer to him only as "Scammin' Sammy". Jay Mariotti's heart turned a deeper shade of black. They've been aggrieved, so they are exacting their revenge in the hope of saving the respect they think they might have lost. Of course, some need to realize that you can't lose what you don't have.
The reality was: Sammy Sosa is all smiles, always has time for the fans, eats Flintstone vitamins and is the picture of integrity. The reality became: Sammy Sosa is a cheater who let us down and cannot be trusted-ever again. Both realities created by sportswriters, both realities as true to life as "Reality TV".
Sammy Sosa is human. He makes mistakes. But that doesn't sell papers or increase the lead-in ratings. Sammy Sosa's a Superhero / Supermonster--that gets ya the eyeballs! Tom is right. The myths of Sammy Sosa WERE created and nurtured by the news media. Reality itself was shaped by the news media. It was then that I started to see how sportswriters collectively had the power to shape reality. Of course, the saying is true - absolute power corrupts absolutely.
In the last 12 years, The Atlanta Braves have finished first in their Division 11 times, won the National League pennant 5 times. Manager Bobby Cox is pretty good, huh? Wouldn't it be cool if the Cubs or Sox had such a good manager? We're lucky if a manager sticks around five years. Cox began managing the Braves in 1978 and the club finished in last place for 3 of his first 5 years. In Chicago, that usually gets you fired. In five years, Jerry Manuel led the Sox to a Division Title, 3 second place finishes and 1 third place finish. The sportswriters in this town still think he's incompetent and should be fired, and if not for a surge of wins a few weeks ago, he might have been. Do sportswriters have an affect on that? It is naïve to think they don't have an effect. The Chicago sports fan is rabid and seeks out the sports media, absorbing all the information. Of course, being Chicago sportswriters, negative thinking abounds. And people wonder why I detest Mariotti...
As I thought about this more, I came to the realization that sports reporting is the last enclave of crusading journalism. It's a form of journalism that slowly disappeared not too long ago perhaps not coincidentally as big companies began buying up more media outlets. Today we see slivers of crusading journalism--from the columnist who keeps writing about an injustice until it is rectified to the multi-part series that continues until something is done to make things right. However, except for those slivers, the news media seems content with just plain telling us what happened in the world instead of affecting change.
One of the more famous crusades by the media is actually a myth - that William Randolph Hearst hastened the U.S. into the Spanish-American War by making up stories of atrocities in Cuba. His supposed 1897 telegram to a war correspondent in Havana, "You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war" most likely never really happened yet the myth, like all myths and stereotypes, is based on a truth. In this case, the truth is that newspapers around the turn of the century were in yellow journalism mode, printing exciting and titillating stories every day in order to attract more readers. Coverage before, during and after the Spanish-American war was riddled with inaccuracies or out-and-out fiction. Seriously, Jayson Blair was born a century too late. Hearst's supposed warmongering in his newspapers possibly helped provoke war over Cuba between the United States and Spain. The public sure ate it up.
The newsmedia rarely crusades anymore. What happened when Glenn Poshard had some evidence of wrongdoing in George Ryan's Secretary of State's Office? The news media were covering an election. They couldn't be bothered. They waited until after the election before they started looking into it, then when they heard the US Attorney was looking into things, they decided there might be a story there. Uh huh. We later found out that corruption surrounded George Ryan like stink around a Frenchman. Had George Ryan been a sports figure, he would never have made it to the election because he'd have been pounded by sportswriters on a daily basis.
I get very frustrated when Walter Jacobson does a Perspective on an injustice and no other media outlet picks it up. If Walter doesn't pound the story, it sometimes gets lost. John Kass recently wrote about a blind, unemployed guy who had a Chicago parking ticket. I was sure that nothing would happen, and if someone hadn't paid the ticket for the blind guy anonymously, nothing would have happened. How about the Cook County Forest Preserves? The Sun-Times just did a big report about that mess. If they don't keep pounding it ala "Why are they driving", the story will simply die--Stroger will make sure of that. Are we tired of patronage jobs, ghost payrolling and unqualified government workers? Maybe so because no media outlet is pounding the stories anymore.
Meanwhile, our sportswriters find an issue and pound it every day. Sosa-gate, Manuel needs to be fired, Tribsters are incompetent, Frank "Big skirt" Thomas is washed up, The Bears are gonna blow it, The Cubs are gonna blow it, The Sox are gonna blow it, the Hawks are gonna blow it, the Bulls blow. Well, you get the idea. Like them or hate them, sportswriters have a huge effect on the reality of sports while news journalists and editorial writers have a much smaller affect on real life. Think of that. Jay Mariotti is more powerful than Steve Neal in something other than body odor. Amazing.
Admittedly, I have a tendency toward thinking in the "micro" which is fine in most cases when the "micro" mirrors the "macro". Tom is getting me to think bigger than "macro", examining the very fabric of time and space…or…something like that. I've learned a lot from Tom--he's been a great friend who challenges me with crazy new ideas that somehow end up being not so crazy. Rest assured that someday I will have my revenge. Until then, he makes me a better writer. Thanks Tom.
Musings
It didn't take long for the Kobe Bryant coverage to turn pathetic. The concept of media bias can easily be proven when you compare & contract the coverage of Kobe's alleged sexual assault with that of Mike Tyson. When Tyson was last accused, the stories had a definite "he's probably guilty" tone. From the start, the Kobe stories were of the "she's gotta be lying" tone. Even after admitting he committed adultery, shattering the honest & faithful husband image that he projected, I'm hearing more stories about the alleged rape victim. I find that repugnant. She got depressed and tried to OD? So what? What does that have to do with the incident itself? Proves she's human? Kobe admitted that he lied-he committed adultery, after telling people that he'd never do that!!! "You guys know me…" my ASS! What kind of scummy dirtballs start digging up and reporting sordid details of someone who was possibly a rape victim? That's a defense lawyer's job, not a journalist's. "I was just doing my job" didn't work at Nuremberg and it's not gonna work in this case. It would be nice if all the women in journalism would rise up and knock some sense into their clueless male counterparts and make sure that this alleged victim wasn't raped in the press before a court decides if she was raped in the first place. But it's not gonna happen. She's going to be trashed by "journalists" who won't care about how it affects her but only how it affects their stature. If that does happen, then I can only pray that one day those scummy muckraking journalists are intensely violated by someone apathetic to their rights. Then I will laugh.
Meanwhile, how will everyone react when the Lakers play road games and the crowd chants "rapist" whenever Kobe touches the ball? Me, I'll be smiling.
Interesting quote from last Wednesday's Sun-Times All-Star Supplement. Fran Spielman wrote about how Chicago Aldermen were offered the rights to purchase 2 tickets to the game & access to the Upper Deck Terrace party room. Nice perk. The quote from Ald. Shirley Coleman (16th): "There are some perks that come along with working a 24/7 job. I wouldn't say that we are not entitled to some type of perks every now and then. But this particular one is not fair." Correct me if I'm wrong, but technically isn't the job of Alderman a "part-time" job allowing most to have 2nd jobs (usually leveraging their clout to make much more money than the city salary)? I'm thinking that Coleman must not be the only Alderman working 24/7, so maybe we should make the job "Full Time". After all, as "part time" employees, I'm sure the Aldermen aren't covered by health insurance or have any kind of decent retirement plan because in the real world, part-timers don't have all that stuff. We should treat our Alderman right and classify their jobs as full-time complete with all the full time perks. Who's with me?
Kudos to Michael Miner for his excellent Hot Type article about the Sun-Times' Mark Brown. Check it out.
Following his article on Mark Brown, Miner mentions an incident with a RedEye vendor who was also begging. Maybe it's just bad luck, maybe it's a coincidence, but a reader tells me that the RedEye vendor at the Brown Line Diversey stop gets his energy in the morning from a 40 oz bottle of beer that doubles as a paperweight on windy days. Maybe the RedEye should hire some of the respectable Streetwise vendors.
Someone asked me if the account of what a certain "Jay M." does in the press box during Sox games is based on fact. The only fact is, there's a story about a sportswriter who likes to rectally ingest pixy stix.
I got the August issue of Chicago Magazine in the mail yesterday. Funny, but my subscription was supposed to run out with the June issue. I haven't decided if I'll renew, but I figure I should wait until they stop sending me free copies.
The San Francisco Chronicle's Tim Goodman wrote an excellent piece about CNN & PBS. The PBS part is dead-on. Check it out.
I'm watching Michelle Tafoya & Dan LeBatard subbing for Tony Kornheiser & Michael Wilbon on ESPN's PTI this week. Maybe it's just the booze talking, or maybe it's just the arousing sight of a woman who can thoroughly debate sports--but I think ABC made a mistake in signing Lisa Guererro to do Monday Night Football sideline reporting rather than picking Tafoya from ESPN. While they're both smart and attractive, I think Guererro is "unattainable hotness" while Tafoya is "attainable hotness". Go for the babe that the average guy could have a chance with.
Watch me Thursday on Chicago Cable Channel 25 during Nude Hippo: Your Chicago Show (every Thursday 7-8pm). This week's topic: Channel 11 screws up the Chicago Week in Review 25th Anniversary.
IN THE CURRENT CHICAGO RED FACE:
- City Council Embracing Gay Set Aside Idea
- Blago's Death Penalty: This Time It Counts
- White House admits to More Errors in Bush's State of the Union speech
- CATHY FALLACY: Pope memo Re: new rules for Mass
- Lakers acquire CuJo from Red Wings, Trade Him to Yankees
- JAY MERRYMAN: Sox blow, need to fire Manuel
- Cool Again: Ribbie & Rhubarb
Check it out at: www.chicagoredface.com.
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