Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Don't Quit Your Day Job

By Mitchell

Well, here we have another example of a so-called "sportswriter" getting in way over his head, as USA Today golf columnist Ian O'Connor sides with the oddball Cindy Sheehan against Bush. (Thanks to Media Blog at NRO for the heads-up.) It's not just that O'Connor's pontificating has no place in a sports column; it's that he's so massively ignorant of the issue.

What is it about these guys that they keep trying to prove something? If they feel as if they've got to write about something "serious" in order to be taken seriously, then maybe they shouldn't have gotten into sportswriting in the first place. If they think they're being funny, then go out and be a standup comic, where you can get instant gratification from the audience. The only humor in O'Connor's oh-so-earnest and so-very-serious column comes from beliving that anyone could be this stupid about the facts and still be taken seriously.

I've said it before and, unfortunately, it looks as if I'll have to keep on saying it: it's fine if you want to talk about politics, as long as you know what you're talking about, and as long as you don't try to pass it off in the middle of a column that's supposted to be about sports.

Media Blog suggests that O'Connor "looks like Michael Jordan trying to play baseball." In sticking with the terminology of O'Connor's regular beat, I'd suggest that he skulled his tee-shot. Unfortunately, USA Today will probably let him get away with a mulligan. I'd suggest that perhaps one of those single-sheet shopping news flyers that you see in suburban coffeehouses would be the best place for O'Connor to ply his trade, until he learns how to be a real journalist.

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