Ray Boyd Blog Post Week 6

I found the article dealing with Bill Simmons to be extremely interesting. The first thing that stuck out to me was the overall description of Simmons’ style. The long lengths of his articles seem to show that when sports fans are properly engaged, they can be interested in interesting, long form journalism. As a class, we have discussed the fact that no one wants to sit and read long articles anymore, especially in this age of 140 character Twitter posts. However, sometimes I think we as journalists underestimate our readers. We assume that they do not want to read long articles so we constantly feed them short blurbs of information. Maybe we should stop and realize that fans can engage in 4,000 word articles. We as journalists just have to take it upon ourselves to write in a way that will keep our readers engaged enough to convince them to make the time commitment. Obviously Simmons has figured that out.

Another part of the article that really stood out to me was the author’s talk about intersectional identities. He presented the fact that Simmons works under the premise that he is an upper middle-class, white male with an extensive education. I personally have always found intersectional identities to be incredibly interesting because they are a testament to the many layers that make up who we are. What was most interesting about the author’s take was his mentioning of the fact that Simmons’, like most writers, does not fit the same identities as the subjects he writes about and he sometimes alludes to that fact in his writing. As a black sports journalist, I’ve always found that phenomenon fascinating. I think sometimes we ignore that fact to avoid the uncomfortable conversations regarding race in sports. I think in our country, we have chosen to pretend that race is not a factor in the world of sports because of the “feel good” nature of sports. We do not want to ruin that so we pretend it is something that is not worth discussing. However, I think it is. I’m not saying it’s an epidemic but every time a race related issue comes up in sports, there tends to be a defense mechanism that goes into place amongst many journalists who constantly assert that race is no longer an issue in sports. We do not have to reach back that far to find a myriad of racially charged sports incidents such as the Al Campanis remarks on Nightline regarding black athletes, the Rush Limbaugh Donovan McNabb comments, the Don Imus “Nappy Headed” controversy, the racially charged article written about the rebranded Brooklyn Nets and the hair comments that infringed upon the gold medal performance of Gabby Douglas in the 2012 Olympics. Race still certainly plays a role in sports whether we choose to recognize it or not. The fact that Simmons can somewhat interject his racially identity without alienating individuals is quite an interesting change up from the norm.

The next reading regarding gender in sports also touches on a paradigm that exists. However, this time it deals with females and their coverage in sports. There is no secret to the fact that women’s sports receive far less coverage than their male counterparts. I’m sure the casual basketball watcher can name the last few NBA champions, but I would bet money that they couldn’t name the most recent WNBA champion.

The male domination of sports media is too obvious to ignore. It is easily detected when we see the difference in coverage for athletes like Danica Patrick, Natalie Gulbis, and Hope Solo. They are all legitimate athletes that the male dominated industry of sports journalism has “sexualized” to grow the appeal of covering their sports. Have some of these female athletes perpetuated this notion? Yes, but they did not invent it. They went along with it.

I also found the information regarding the small amounts of women in sports journalism to be really interesting. We talked in class about the stereotypical bombshell blonde who serves to be a host or a sideline reporter but who never really injects any real substantial sports analysis. This phenomenon is clearly a sign of the male dominated mindset of sports journalism but I always pose this question when the topic comes up. Why do we assume that the stereotypical bombshell does not know exactly what she’s talking about when it comes to sports and that she is not merely a pretty face. Maybe she earned that job clearly because she was the most knowledgeable and talented option. Perhaps, that the fact that women often land in those types of jobs, is more of a statement on society than on sports journalists. Maybe people are just being given what they are used to getting.     

My paper idea is the Magic Johnson HIV story that took the sports world by storm in the early 90's. HIV was something that was scary because it was so new and somewhat mysterious and our sports heroes were the last people we thought could be affected. I'd love to analyze how the media covered the story and what it did for the awareness surrounding the disease moving forward.