Stop Calling Us the Toy Department

Erin Whiteside’s The New Toy Department reiterates what is wrong with blogging and how people view it as legitimate reporting. Let me preface before getting into analysis and commentary on her piece, that I do believe blogs can be credible. However, there are multiple factors that contribute to the credibility of a blog. For instance, does the individual how trustworthy and accurate sources and are they unbiased? As for the body of Whiteside’s work, I am thoroughly annoyed at the constant criticism and name calling the sports department receives. I understand the news department feels undermined at times, which is the case in the majority. However in many instances, the sports department is what keeps a good portion of daily newspapers in circulation. There are a couple lengthy quotes from her piece that each seem to convey the same message, however in my mind can stand alone in other portions:

“As baseball writers reveled in the story of ‘America’s pastime,’ a writer named Steve Wilstein challenged that narrative when he broke the story that McGwire was using a performance enhancing drug that had been known to boost strength, possibly contributing to his home run-hitting prowess. Wilstein was criticized after publishing the story and in turn criticized his fellow beat reporters for caring more about promoting the ‘feel good’ home-run chase, which affected their ability to report on McGwire’s drug use.”

“The practice of eschewing social issues and at times protecting key sources from negative stories as Wilstein says baseball writers did that summer contribute to the labeling of the sports department as the ‘toy department’.”

“Sports journalists have been indicted with failing to offer a critical perspective toward the organizations and athletes they cover and not meeting the journalistic standards set by their colleagues on the news desk.”

“The sports department has often been called the ‘toy department’ as indicative of a lack of professional standards and unwillingness to serve the so-called ‘watchdog’ function of journalism”.

There are countless examples that illustrate this practice in sports journalism of failing to engage social issues intertwined with sports. This lack of problem-oriented stories does contribute to the notion of sports journalism as the “toy department”. However there are clear cut reasons as to why this is the case. The news desk will always look down upon the sports department and call them the “toy department” because of their inability to bring social issues to the foreground.

However, as mentioned earlier, the sports department helps keep many daily newspapers in circulation. One significant issue with taking advantage of the journalist’s power to bring social issues into the big picture is many readers do not want to be told how to feel about certain issues. Not to mention with the rapid-fire news cycle we live in, five or more stories need to be published in a day. Therefore you sure as hell do not want to alienate your sources by reporting damning information about them.

And finally, there is the argument that as long as it is not harming their play on the field then we as a society do not really need to know about it. The feeling is that the issue is of a personal matter with the athlete and therefore is off the field related. The flip side of that is when someone suggests bringing the demons out of a politician’s closet. The argument there is that the politician represents our “best interests” on a day-to-day basis. Whereas the athlete, has nothing to do with our livelihood unless we placed down a bet on the outcome of a game.