Box Score Beat

New Journalism Demands a New Voice

Posted on 08. Mar, 2009 by Collin Orcutt in Shifting Journalism

A friend pointed me to Ben McGrath’s recent article in The New Yorker titled “Roid Warriors” a few days ago. The article is about the New York Daily News’ I-Team, an investigative sports unit that finds itself digging up steroid scandals more and more lately.

I ran into the same friend the next day, and she asked me how I liked the piece. I replied that it was interesting enough, but I thought the writing was stereotypical print style and that it didn’t do much for me. “How so?” she asked. The best way I could think to respond was with an analogy:

If a middle school teacher asks their class to draw an apple, what will the majority of the apples look like? Probably most will look like a red delicious: bright red coloring, a cleft at the base, and a slightly curved stem with maybe a leaf or two sprouting from the top. That’s how the article read to me, as unsurprising as the typical red delicious.

Don’t get me wrong, the reporting in the piece was solid, and the point of the article was surely to make the I-Team’s story the focus. But I’ve realized in the last few months that, due mostly to the proliferation of blogs I read, I have come to not only enjoy but also to expect a voice and an opinion in sports articles.

That seems to be the big difference between the net and the printed page: people get to be their own columnist online. Generalization, sure, but I believe there’s warrant to it. What I’m finding troublesome, though, is when writers I would classify as “print writers” convert to the online world and bring their newspaperman voice with them.

What do I mean by newspaperman voice? The type of writing that makes you think of trench coats, typewriters, kitschy headlines, and newspaper bundles tied with twine. The type of writing that smells faintly of ink and printing presses. The type of writing that has become so standard it can be called a “type of writing.”

Rick Reilly’s a perfect example. He’s still print guy per say, with a column that appears in ESPN The Mag, but, like his supposed nemesis Bill Simmons, he writes for the website between magazine articles.

The problem is, his website postings are just the same as his magazine pieces (something he said he would do from the start). For example, this is from his latest “Life of Reilly” post about cheap ticket options as a result of the bad economy:

Sure, times are rougher than Russian toilet paper. Your 401K is now a 101k. Donald Trump just laid off three blow-dryists. But because of it, you can see great sporting events for the price of a can of Spam Lite!

Some fans with season tickets can’t afford the parking, the $7 Cokes or even the razor to shave beforehand. They’re dumping them like AIG stock on places like StubHub.com and eBay. I have a friend who got two tickets to the Orange Bowl this year, plus parking, for $10. That’s cheaper than an actual bowl of oranges!

Rougher than Russian toilet paper. Cheaper than an actual bowl of oranges. Just a graf later, he uses the word “loaf.” All that’s missing is a “gee-williker” and a glass bottle of Coca Cola.

I liked Rick Reilly’s writing growing up. I was never lucky enough to have a subscription to SI, so trips to the dentist became crash reading sessions of as many back pages as I could finish before my check-up. I found his stuff is clever in a pull a quarter from behind your ear way — much cooler before you figure out the trick. But a lot has changed since my dentist reading days — especially in the journalism world. So why not Reilly’s style? His print stuff can stay the same, that makes sense. But couldn’t he at least use his online platform for something a little different?

Jay Mariotti is kind of a similar case. His style has always been a little more progressive (aggressive?) than the traditional print style. He was an outspoken columnist while at the Chicago Sun Times, and he remains an outspoken columnist at AOL’s Fanhouse. But he hasn’t taken advantage of what the internet can offer, either. If you were reading closely enough, perhaps you could have seen that coming–in his inaugural post, he hinted that the only real change would be the process:

The difference is, the column won’t go through the 20th-century, ink-and-newsprint monkey grind where you hope the truck driver doesn’t stop at Dunkin’ Donuts and the delivery boy doesn’t hit your dog on the ass. The column simply will go from my computer to an editor to you.

Mariotti’s articles read like big print pieces, right down to the way he uses quotes, often taking them from press conferences broadcast on TV and throwing them in his piece like he reported it.

Let me be clear, I don’t have a problem with a “print voice.” Although it may not be my preferred style, I understand that newspapers and those who wrote for them shaped the sports journalism world of today.

It’s simply that, in this time, newspapers have been confronted by the internet, and they are losing. To think that you can dump print content online and just keep on going may be exactly why journalism is having such a hard time marketing itself today.

It’s no longer just a print world. Perhaps it’s time for something more than a print voice.

Tags: Ben McGrath, blogs, ESPN, Fanhouse, internet, Jay Mariotti, newspaper, print, print voice, Rick Reilly, The New Yorker