Nobody does. Sports is entertainment, and entertainment is also in a newspaper. Movie reviews, TV listings, gardening tips, etc all appear in a newspaper. Hell, Cecil’s column isn’t news and yet it’s in a newspaper. This was the essence of Swords to plowshare’s question to you. You have a bug up your bum about sports, whether you want to admit it or not. For christsakes buddy, in your first post you called people who read the Sports section “frightening”. Do you also find the people who read the living section “frightening”?
Why are you even posting in a thread about sportswriters if your position is that they shouldn’t exist?
I freely admit I don’t like sports a great deal. My problem with treating sports as “Serious News” (as opposed to light fluff like Celebrity Gossip or Lifestyle) is that a lot of people attach a lot of significance to it that ends up having “Real World” implications for everyone, regardless of whether or not they also like sports. Culturally, it’s quite alright to say “I don’t care about what’s going on in the world” but it’s not OK to say “I really don’t care about [Sporting Event]” in a lot of places (including some that I’ve lived/worked in). That’s not, I would suggest, a particularly progressive state of affairs.
There’s nothing wrong with entertainment in newspapers, and I don’t believe I’ve said otherwise- after all, I’ve written a great deal of entertainment copy in my time. The “frightening” point I was addressing was people reading only the sports section and ignoring- not even skimming, but simply discarding- the rest of the newspaper.
Try and imagine that’s there’s a significant section in the newspaper devoted entirely to “After Action Reports” of popular online games like World of Warcraft and Call of Duty. Would most people (not SDMB members, but “The Average Punter”) honestly think that’s an appropriate thing to be getting up to quarter of the space in the paper, much less read nothing else but that? Of course not. Yet it’s really no different to, IMHO, what the Sports Section is, and that’s somehow an unassailable cornerstone of civilisation.
Because I’ve got an MA in Journalism and about 15 years experience in the media so it’s a subject that A) I’ve got some knowledge of and B) Opinions on. Silly me for forgetting that you’re not allowed to have dissenting opinions here.
What you are not allowed to do is threadshit. It’s fine to have opinions, but if your opinion on a subject is that the subject shouldn’t even exist, which is what you have said with the “If I was Editor of the Universe etc, etc” then that’s pretty bad form. Take your screwed up anti-sports obsession elsewhere.
And you know something else? Skipping all those gym classes when you were a kid did not do you any favors.
Unfortunately, yes. I’m trying to convince the guy that he has a prejudice that he needs to fix. I was wondering why he had so much of a bug up his ass (and the “but I’m an expert at journalism!” tweaked me a bit), so I did a search. I found this:
If he doesn’t like sports, why the hell is he posting about it? The guy has some kind of complex that makes him look down on anybody who wants to know what the score of the game was last night. He doesn’t seem to understand that just because he doesn’t like something, it doesn’t make it wrong for other people to to be interested in what happened in a game. I’m just trying to make him look at himself.
Why do I need to “fix” it? I’ve never denied I don’t like sports. I’m sure you’ve got more than a few opinions or views of your own that people think you should “fix”. And the personal attack was way out of line and uncalled for, incidentally. I’m disappointed, to be honest- usually I find your posts to be more conducive to discussion than that.
Lots of people on the boards post in threads about subjects they don’t like. I think this one is (or rather was) relevant and interesting and was offering my view on it- a view which, I note, is shared by at least one other poster.
You’ve got your view on the subject, I’ve got mine, and clearly never the twain shall meet. And FWIW I don’t object to people having an interest in sports- I object to people being too interested in sports to the exclusion of all else, and then having a got at people who disagree with them on the importance of said sports.
Why? You don’t seriously think I’m going to change my view on the subject, do you? And frankly, if you honestly wanted me to “take a look at myself”, you’d be adopting a far more reasonable tone which wouldn’t involve personal attacks.
Folks, let’s bring this thread back to the subject in the OP.
Martini Endfield, if you hate sports so passionately, then opening sports-related threads in this forum is probably not for you. It’s not necessary to come into a thread and hijack it by complaining about the entire genre. Take it to the Pit if you feel that way and need to vent your spleen further.
A Monkey With A Gun: If someone’s threadshitting, report the post. Calling out threadshitting in the thread is junior moderating for one, and it isn’t constructive.
If either of you wants to respond to this thread from here on out, make sure it’s relevant to the OP. If you want to fight with each other, take it elsewhere.