Sport In America from Sports Illustrated... and role of Sports Journalism

Very interesting cover story in the November 28 issue of Sports Illustrated.

The entire text of the piece by Time Inc Sports editor Terry McDonell doesn't appear to be online now (just silly, me thinks), but Sport In America is posted as an abridged version. The story introduces a future HBO series of the same name that Sports Illustrated will be co-producing.

Overall concept of the series and introductory story is described on this Inside Sports Illustrated blog post and around the question of what sport means to individual people... with this question still quite relevant in today's environment of large money and high level cynicism around sport.

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The piece by McDonell was interesting (if only the whole text could be provided here) and got me thinking more about sports journalism and what it does. There's certainly recapping of with scores and game summaries, but also much more. The narrative recreation of fan memories is a huge offering that sports journalism can provide and another aspect of journalism around sports is the revealing of information.

This can be around things like player profiles a well as supremely important topics like Jerry Sandusky and the Penn State child sex abuse case (with my blog post last month on writing about the scandal). This case provided another example of how sports journalism can play a much more important than score and game notes role with this NBC interview with Sandusky where noted sports journalist Bob Costas let Sandusky eviscerate himself in relation to the accusations made and charges filed.

Very important stuff to be sure... and this revealing, recreating and recapping that can be provided by sports journalism doesn't even fully cover the entertainment value that solid media coverage can add to the (financially very valuable) total fan experience.

Sports Ilustrated Pieces: Olympic Spirit & Bob Costas/Al Michaels

Two different stories that struck me from the Feb 22 issue of Sports Illustrated.



Starting off in this first SI issue since the Vancouver Olympics began was the Tim Layden piece "The Spirit Is Back" with an overview of the Games thus far. Really, though, it was Layden's first section about (for lack of a better phrase) the Olympic Spirit that got me good. I'm quite the sap for genuine Olympic human interest stuff.

The second story (and the one of the two which I really liked in it's totality) was "It's Not As Easy As It Looks" by Joe Posnanski (who I recently posted about as the frequent writer of his voluminous "Joe Blog"). This SI article is about the Olympic co-hosts Bob Costas and Al Michaels and is a really good look at two guys doing what they love and always wanted to do, but doing it in different ways. Posnanski writes of the hard work and study that Michaels brings and the different approach that Costas brings of sheer brilliance with language on the air.

Regardless of how they go about the job, Costas and Michaels are titans of Sports Broadcasting and it's impressive to me to think of how well (and for how long) they practice their craft.