When did sports journalism get so bad

[nucci]

Just now, dwight in philly said:

Sports  reporting , IMHO,(because im old) has turned into a bunch of idiots babbling on about how they feel about society in general , with sports as a backdrop 

Yep

[BuffaloBill]

To me the underlying story is that the bias against Josh that came up in the draft lingers even now.  Add to that, Buffalo is a small market team that seems to get much of its attention for the stupid act of slamming oneself through cheap tables.  

 

At least there has been some attention given to the phenomenal generosity of the Bill’s fan base.

[dwight in philly]

1 minute ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

This.

 

I'll assume no one in this thread has any social media profiles or apps installed on their phones?

 

#DeleteFacebook

Speaking for myself, i dont.. because i choose to not use a "cell phone" .. 

[DrDawkinstein]

3 minutes ago, Scott7975 said:

I dunno, it might not be as wide spread but Ive seen some uploads on YouTube of like ESPN clips and things like that.  Those uploads have guys on Networks mostly saying the Bills are the team to beat right now.  Shannon Sharp said the Bills are the best team in the league at this point. Stephon A or whatever his name is that use to talk trash is calling Allen and the Bills dogs (in a good way.) A lot of people are saying this.

 

The Bills win a Super Bowl and all the talk will be about them next season. 

 

Very true. GMFB has hyped up the Bills extensively the last 2 mornings. But at some point, there isnt much else to say.

 

Yes it is easier to tear down. But there is also a lot more to discuss when talking about the losing team and what went wrong and how they can fix it.

 

This board is a great example of that. During the drought years, we had long, deep threads about how to fix the franchise. New HC? Which one? New GM? Which players need replacing? What types of gameplans should they be running instead? etc etc

 

Now that we are winning, the talk doesnt get so deep because it's tough to expand on "Isn't Josh Allen AWESOME?!" "Yeah, he is!"

[dpberr]

Shortly after 9/11.  Sports followed cable news in replacing news with opinion and hot takes.  The most highly paid stars in cable news and sports news are your opinion personalities - your Rachel Maddows, Tucker Carlsons, Stephen A. Smiths, etc.  

 

Today, nobody wants to be a sports journalist if they can't have their opinion column too, and kids going to college for sports journalism spend most of the time crafting the column writing skills and not the news skills.  

 

 

 

 

[thenorthremembers]

Its the same for most media these days, oversaturation.   The ratio of good to bad may be the same, but given the amount available its more insufferable.

[Ridgewaycynic2013]

28 minutes ago, I am the egg man said:

It is no longer straight up sports reporting.

 

It’s about making one look smart doing so.

Some fail miserably.

[GunnerBill]

40 minutes ago, LeGOATski said:

This is where all the Athletic influencers come in to tell us how great it is for only $1 a month.

 

It is great. And I say that as a former journalist. 

[Success]

It's nothing but hot takes now.  There are still a few good reporters out there, but the "big names" all seem to have gotten there with really bad hot takes, taking "controversial" positions, and picking at least one great player to constantly argue "he's overrated!" about.

 

It's pretty sad, but it's all about clicks now.  When I come across good journalism, I really appreciate it.

 

[clayboy54]

This downward spiral all started with Coach Dickerson, and continues to this day with Shopp and the Bulldog. Yet, people eat that stuff up!

 

Its sad, really.

[GunnerBill]

26 minutes ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

This.

 

I'll assume no one in this thread has any social media profiles or apps installed on their phones?

 

#DeleteFacebook

 

Never had a facebook account, or a twitter account. 

[ProcessAccepted]

38 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

Wait? What? I shouldn’t believe everything I see on the Internet or hear on TV/Radio? I’m going to have rethink those magic diet pills!!

I'm not trying to go down that rabbit hole or start that dialog. I'm just saying that sports journalism has become really lazy and I'm not sure how it got here. It's all hot takes and clickbait. Why can't they give Josh, Beane, Coach McD etc. credit after a big win. Why do they have to stay talking about the Chiefs. 

 

What you're referencing is a whole other deal that really doesn't belong on a sports fan discussion board. 

[Ed_Formerly_of_Roch]

44 minutes ago, ProcessAccepted said:

I'm not from this country but I've lived in the US for 27 years. I clearly remember when the amount of coverage a team\player got was based on how well they played. Sadly not the case any more. I know this happened slowly but I'm having a hard time remembering when things changed to the extent that they are today. Watching Kyle Brandt just now on One Bills Live was music to my ears. Why isn't there more content like what he's suggesting. The Bills win big in KC and yet all they talk about is KC and Mahomes. Why can't Josh, Beane etc get some love.

 

 

 

 

Realistically the bigger story is the collapse of the Chiefs.  The Bills were expected to be good and are, maybe even a little better defensively than imagined.  But while it wasn't shocking that the Bills won the game, the shocking part and story so far for the season is how bad the Chiefs are and particularly on defense. 

 

Bills were expected to win/lead division and are.  Right now Chiefs are the 11th best team in conference, no one predicted that would be the case.

 

To an impartial fan it is the bigger league wide story.

[GunnerBill]

15 minutes ago, dpberr said:

Today, nobody wants to be a sports journalist if they can't have their opinion column too, and kids going to college for sports journalism spend most of the time crafting the column writing skills and not the news skills.  

 

 

 

I can confirm there is a lot of truth in this just in the people I trained with. Most of them did not want to report. They wanted to comment. 

 

I would say though people in this thread are equally guilty of mistaking the two. Kyle Brandt - not a journalist. Stephen A Smith - not a journalist. Nick Wright - not a journalist. 

 

Good sports journalism is still out there. Unfortunately most fans would rather turn the tv on and watch talking heads than actually search it out and then those same fans complain sports journalism has gone bad. Nah folks. It is you that has gone bad. The tv chewing gum is pandering to you. 

Edited October 12, 2021 by GunnerBill

[B-Man]

 

 

 

When did sports journalism get so bad ?

 

Corrected

[Warcodered]

 

[ProcessAccepted]

1 minute ago, Ed_Formerly_of_Roch said:

 

Realistically the bigger story is the collapse of the Chiefs.  The Bills were expected to be good and are, maybe even a little better defensively than imagined.  But while it wasn't shocking that the Bills won the game, the shocking part and story so far for the season is how bad the Chiefs are and particularly on defense. 

 

Bills were expected to win/lead division and are.  Right now Chiefs are the 11th best team in conference, no one predicted that would be the case.

 

To an impartial fan it is the bigger league wide story.

I get that and agree that should be discussed. What I'm saying is that the Bills were beaten down last year by the Chiefs and went on a mission to get better in the areas they needed to. That came to fruition on SNF. The way the Bills have progressed since Rex drove off in his off season winning pickup is equally as big a story as the Chiefs demise. I'm struggling to find any content from a network where they don't revert straight back to what's wrong with the Chiefs. It was awesome to hear Kyle Brandt say exactly that.

[dwight in philly]

12 minutes ago, dwight in philly said:

 

I  would rather hang by my thumbs than listen to a "sports journalist " give his/her opinion on anything other than whatever sport(s) they are covering. 

 

 

 

Quote

[The Frankish Reich]

When I was younger, back in the (gasp!) Bills Super Bowl runs, I didn't live in Buffalo. I rarely watched Bills games on TV. There was no internet. I watched ESPN highlights. Actually looked forward to Sports Center. And I read newspaper and magazine summaries about what happened in yesterday's (last weekend's game). Like, really paid attention to some reporter's description of how the Bills converted on that critical 4th and 3.

 

When I was younger still, there was no ESPN and Sports Center. There was only the newspaper and, later in the week, Sports Illustrated. Or if my folks took me to the part of town with the good drug store with the news stand, The Sporting News. I devoured those columns about what happened in last week's game. And there was an art to the writing: setting the scene, describing what actually happened on the field, not just writing some meta-story about how "what happened on the field" means something bigger, or shows some moral fiber or some moral failing.

 

Who on earth would read a description of what happened today? I'll watch the clips. Or if I really care about a team, I for damn sure will watch the game as it happens. So the art of descriptive reporting has fallen into decay. Nobody wants to read it, nobody learns to write it.

 

Roger Angell, the New Yorker baseball writer, was the last of the breed. He'd do World Series summaries a full two weeks or more after the fact. They were beautifully written. He's 101 years old. I last remember reading one of these about 10 years ago. I think he gave it up at about 93 ... 

[Michael1962]

While I agree that journalism in the US is lame I have seen several articles discussing the Bills and their excellent game plan, so I don't think it is all about the Chief's decline.