Bill Simmons: The Sports Guy
Bill Simmons couldn't get a regular sportswriting job on a newspaper, so he started his own Website and wrote about sports and other stuff he and his pals always talked about.
Now he's bigger than just about any MSM sportswriter around. The keys to his success were not trying to be objective and not being ruined by traditional journalism training.
In an interview with the NYT, Simmons recalls meeting some of the sportswriters who held jobs to which he once aspired. He always came away confused.As a devoted fan of Boston's teams, Mr. Simmons said, he never understood how people could gravitate toward sportswriting while professing not to care which team won, in the name of journalistic objectivity.
"I met the other reporters," Mr. Simmons said. "They were 300 pounds and miserable. I never understood why they didn't enjoy their jobs. It's weird to leave your passion at the door."
He recalled that once in a press box he asked another reporter who his favorite football team was. "He looked at me like I'd asked, 'Hey, ever had sex with a guy?' "
[NYT]
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4 comments:
Bill Simmons is the greatest sports writer in the world.
And I don't think that's hyperbole.
When I worked for a daily paper I had credentials to Dallas Cowboys home games. My wife always asked me, "How can you make so much noise at home watching them on TV and then sit there in the press box in the game and not say anything?" I told her, "I don't really know, but I know it's a privilege (perk of my job at the time) to get to cover them."
Buenas tardes, DG here otro vez.
Banjo, you are tapping into some heavy duty issues on editorial/peer review/mode of validation of information with this series of your firing and the author-driven revolutionary democratic platform presented by the internet.
Madre Mia, just be glad you are/were in the information transfer establishment at a "hayseed" organization, not in "non-hayseed" academia--see Attack of the Career-Killing Blogs (http://www.slate.com/id/2130466/#ContinueArticle) and related links.
What's your take, will BRAZOSPORT NEWS be a plus or negative on your resume?
Muy recuerdos.
DG,
If I were a careerist, it would definitely be a negative. Blogging is fraught with peril, be it in the military/industrial complex, academia or the traditional news gathering business, as it is the essence of that ol' bugaboo -- seizing the means of production. It frightens people. Luckily, I am not a careerist.
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