"More Slimy Double Standards From Sportswriter Harvey Araton"
mike
www.mrc.org
More Slimy Double Standards From Sportswriter Harvey Araton
For Araton, it's necessary for athletes and athletic commentators to
speak out on public issues -- unless it's for a cause that's not
politically correct, like supporting teammates falsely accused of
rape.
Posted by: Clay Waters
4/20/2009 4:38:27 PM
Sportswriter Harvey Araton's column Sunday on the retirement of NFL
broadcasting legend John Madden kicked him on the way out the door,
actually accusing Madden, a former coach turned influential football
analyst, of only talking about football: "Madden, for the most part,
kept his eye on the football."
His mantra should have been: it’s a football game, duh! He was a
revolutionary in the booth, especially as a master of shtick.
Unfortunately, as the national voice of his sport, he was more the
mouse who didn’t roar but played it safe, by punting most controversy,
like other champion American pitchmen, Michael Jordan and Tiger
Woods....Across three decades, as the N.F.L. became the unparalleled
success story and financial model in American sports, there were many
subjects worthy (labor, steroids, concussions, etc.) of someone with a
vast weekly audience and a daily pass into television reporters’
newspaper columns. Madden, for the most part, kept his eye on the
football....Admittedly, no laws are broken by the failure to use a
platform for social good, but Jordan and Woods over the years have
been called out for never speaking out, risking their corporate
appeal. Why only athletes? Why not men like Madden?
Araton much preferred Bob Costas, who has developed a sideline in
liberal commentary. Araton praised Costas for extending his baseball
expertise into other issues:
For comparison’s sake, can you imagine Bob Costas -- who at the
national level is as much the voice of baseball as Madden has been
football’s -- achieving his level of deserved respect by commenting
almost exclusively about what happens between the white lines?
There's a history here that makes Araton's rant not just rude, but
obnoxious. Compare Araton's disappointment that Madden failed to speak
out with his horrified reaction in his May 26, 2006 column, after the
Duke women's lacrosse team had the audacity to support their male
colleagues being falsely accused of rape by saying they would wear
headbands that read INNOCENT at their next match.
Far from supporting the athletes for taking a stand on a public issue,
for commenting on something outside the white lines, Araton instead
wondered why the college administrators had not intervened to stop
that sort of speech:
Innocent until ? Presumed innocence? Those are sweatband statements
that would be more palatable. Even then, does cross-team friendship
and university pride negate common sense at a college as difficult to
gain admission to as Duke? Has anyone -- from the women's lacrosse
coach, Kerstin Kimel, to the Duke president, Richard H. Brodhead --
reminded the players of the kind of behavior they are staking their
own reputations on?
Araton clearly assumed the guilt of the Duke lacrosse players, as he
showed in a June 2, 2006 column:
Shouldn't the judicial system be allowed to work without the accused
being martyred, considering the long history in this country of black
women being abused by white men of means?
Demetrios
afterwards. And no, I wouldn't ordinarily bother to comment on this
but I am sitting waiting for a plumber who is now almost 30 minutes
late, and can't do anything else while I wait. Yee haw.
On Apr 21, 9:56 am, mike <yard22...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> http://www.timeswatch.org/articles/2009/20090420155928.aspxwww.mrc.org
-- From the May 2006 column
>
> Araton clearly assumed the guilt of the Duke lacrosse players, as he
> showed in a June 2, 2006 column:
>
> " Shouldn't the judicial system be allowed to work without the accused
> being martyred, considering the long history in this country of black
> women being abused by white men of means? "
First off, if you're going to post something up from a source that
uses only indentation to set off quotes, make sure you add them back
in, because usenet tends to strip those, making the article fairly
challenging to read. Given the sheer number of popups that I got (on a
Mac) trying to read that article at the original site, including some
random fantasy online role playing game, I can safely say I'll avoid
hitting that particular bulwark of journalism anytime soon.
That being said, the point being rather poorly made by the article
(which seems more to try to attack the Times than offer a germane
discussion on the topic), is interesting. I've always felt that I
don't like to mix politics with my sports, when it's just the sports.
We've now made sports into enough of a newsworthy topic that we have
major sports journalists, whereas before it tended more to be beat
reporters. Sure, there were times it crossed over, the Black Sox
scandal, etc, but I feel like until the past fifteen years or so, for
the most part sports reporting tended to be the regurgitation of what
the messages put out by coaches, teams, and leagues. Now we have true
investigative journalists covering sports. Guys like Bob Costas,
Bryant Gumbel, etc, are true journalists, whose coverage happens to be
sport. Which should not be confused with the likes of John Madden, Joe
Buck, Harry Kalas, etc, who are guys who provide a soundtrack to
sporting events.
Not to diminish either of them, but frankly I don't want to hear
anything aside from what is going on, or related to going on, during a
sporting event. As much as I hate having a random guest join the MNF
broadcast to promote their new upcoming tv show, or even worse,
Presidential candidates giving pre-prepared stump speeches, I'd
likewise not want to hear Madden talking about collegiate lacrosse
during a Seahawks/Bears game.
The one exception, of course, is turducken.
D.
Glenn Greenstein
> http://www.timeswatch.org/articles/2009/20090420155928.aspxwww.mrc.org
>
My God, does this fool actually think we want the color guy of a game
to be commenting on roids and concussions?
Johnctx
Glenn that would be about the game. He wants race, politics etc. thrown
in there as well.
Araton comes off to people outside NY as the caricature of the knee jerk
liberal. Every black person is oppressed. Every comment has to be
twisted into some social statement. I don''t like it when athletes go
overboard on the Jesus or God stuff as I don't think the booth is a
place to divide an audience. Hopefully people are listening or watching
to enjoy a game.
Finally how about his obsession with women's sports? Sorry if it wasn't
chic to write about it no one writes more than two lines about anything
but women''s tennis. I am all for women's sports for girls & women but
don't force it one the air as few care.
papa.carl44
"Johnctx" <j...@spamtx.net> wrote in message
news:T9GdnT1oOtnfa3DU...@giganews.com...
He wants another version of Kornheiser....if that happens, I'll take the
speakers out of the TV. JUST STICK TO THE FREAKIN GAME !!!!
Grinch
wrote:
>http://www.timeswatch.org/articles/2009/20090420155928.aspx
>www.mrc.org
>
>More Slimy Double Standards From Sportswriter Harvey Araton
>For Araton, it's necessary for athletes and athletic commentators to
>speak out on public issues -- unless it's for a cause that's not
>politically correct, like supporting teammates falsely accused of
>rape.
>
>Posted by: Clay Waters
>4/20/2009 4:38:27 PM
>
>Sportswriter Harvey Araton's column Sunday on the retirement of NFL
>broadcasting legend John Madden kicked him on the way out the door,
>actually accusing Madden, a former coach turned influential football
>analyst, of only talking about football: "Madden, for the most part,
>kept his eye on the football...."
If only the NY Times's writers would stick to reporting news, instead
of turning every news report into a personal editorial, maybe it's
business wouldn't be collapsing quite a fast as it is.
>"His mantra should have been: it’s a football game, duh!
Which is all it is, duh. Imagine a guy sticking to talking about only
what he knows about and is paid to talk about.
What is this world coming to?
>Unfortunately, as the national voice of his sport, he was more the
>mouse who didn’t roar but played it safe, by punting most controversy,
>like other champion American pitchmen, Michael Jordan and Tiger
>Woods....
Oh my God. More guys who *don't* talk about what they don't know
about!
If this plague ever spread to ... like ... newspaper sports writers,
where would we be?
>.Admittedly, no laws are broken by the failure to use a
>platform for social good,
Yes, but a lame excuse
> but Jordan and Woods over the years have
>been called out for never speaking out, risking their corporate
>appeal. Why only athletes? Why not men like Madden?
Damn John Madden!
Of course, if Madden *did* speak out about some more things that he
*did* know about, such as the idiot quality of many sports writers ...
especially the ilk who think that because they are sports writers they
also are somehow are qualified as insightful social commentators and
judges of moral right and wrong ... what would Harvey be saying about
John ttoday?
In particular, suppose Madden had spoken out against the idiocy of the
likes of, oh, Araton's NY Times' infamously failed crusade to "end
discrimination against women" at the Augusta golf club, a private
membership organization completely free to admit whomever it wants. A
crusade that crashed and burned humiliatingly for the Times because,
frankly, no women cared.
Yes, think for a moment of all the oppressed poor and struggling
middle-class women whoses lives have been made so much harder by being
denied membership in the Augusta Golf Club! Well, there aren't any,
so don't think of that. No...
Instead, think of all the millionairess women who have been flung
into despair by denied membership at Augusta!
Yes, of all the challenges facing America, *that* was the great social
wrong that the sports & *editorial* pages of the NY Times -- with
their keen sense of Social Justice -- rose to meet a little while
back!
The NY Times famously ran an editorial castigating Tiger Woods for
remaining sane, like the rest of the world, and not joining their
cause by boycotting the Masters!
(So when Harvey writes:
> but Jordan and Woods over the years have
>been called out for never speaking out... Why not men like Madden?
.. what he means by "have been called out" is "by us, so why shouldn't
I call out Madden too?")
Those Times editors later got fired, the way the paper humiliated
itself among the rest of the press on this subject being a fair part
of the reason why (though certainly not all of it -- this was just a
symptom of how the whole paper operates).
http://www.slate.com/id/2097683/
Araton forgets that most football people, especially old-line football
coaches, are *conservative*. Maybe second only to NASCAR drivers in
that.
If Madden had used his considerable celebrity to promote conservative
causes -- and for instance had joined the ranks of those mocking the
Times' Augusta crusade -- one suspects Araton's farewell to him would
have read more like...
"Madden on social causes was a dinosaur of the kind still found among
old football coaches, and would have done both himself and his
audiences a favor if he had avoided revealing this so frequently, and
had instead remained focused on the game. Nevertheless...."
>For comparison’s sake, can you imagine Bob Costas -- who at the
>national level is as much the voice of baseball as Madden has been
>football’s -- achieving his level of deserved respect by commenting
>almost exclusively about what happens between the white lines? ...
Oh god, Costas! 'Nuff said. ;-)
Here's the point: Taking the fact that you have a modicum of celebrity
in some slight area -- and the only area slighter than sports is
sports writing -- as proof of your keen sense of social justice, great
knowledge of right and wrong, and *duty* to improve the world by
bestowing your opinions upon it, is a *vice*.
Madden, Woods, Jordan, display *virtue* by not lecturing the world on
subjects about which they know nothing.
Araton slams them for having this virtue. If only the Times writers
and editors would pick up a bit of it.
Of course such celebrity arrogance isn't limtted to sports writers --
it infects people who become "good" at anything.
One of the easiest ways to deceive oneself is by thinking: since I am
an expert on A, obviously I'm very smart and so an expert on B, C, D,
politics, socual justice, the economy, war and peace, and
international afffairs too!
But knowledge trumps IQ and isn't transferrable from one subject to
another. (If you are in Manhattan and need directions to Avenue C, do
you want to ask a visiting tourist quantum physicist with an IQ of 195
or a local cabbie with an IQ of 90?)
Though just try telling that to the mavens who decide that after
becoming expert at something they are expert at everything and set
themselves up as editorialists and media pundits on all things -- or
to their followers.
Here's a funny quote, in retrospect, from one of the most notable of
them, at the Times:
"I do not think of myself as an all-purpose pundit. I remember once
(during the air phase of the Gulf War) seeing John Kenneth Galbraith
making pronouncements on TV about the military situation, and telling
friends that if I ever start pontificating in public about a technical
subject I don'tunderstand, they should gag me. "
-- Paul Krugman, 1999, before he went to the Times.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2000065/entry/1002474/
It's tough when your friends let you down. ;-)
Minnesota Fats
> On Tue, 21 Apr 2009 06:56:31 -0700 (PDT), mike <yard22...@yahoo.com>
>
> - Show quoted text -
Simply stated, where the hell is it written--other than in the NY
Times--that someone like John Madden has to come forward with a litany
of his social perspectives? Personally, I don't give a damn any more
than I care about those of my doctor, auto mechanic or trash
collector. All I care about is that they're qualified to perform the
services they're paid for. Should they run for public office, then it
becomes a pizza with a different topping.