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Sports
June 21, 2006
NYT: We Believe You, Chase
Phillies second baseman Chase Utley has signed a pledge stating, in part, "I pledge that I am not using any illegal or unethical performance-enhancing drugs." The signed statement can't be verified, isn't legally binding, and has nothing to do with his major-league contract (it's mandated by his training center, Athletes' Performance, which doesn't test its athletes, and might even make them sign the meaningless pledge for—cynicism alert—free publicity on the front of a major newspaper's sports section). Yet New York Times reporter Lee Jenkins seems to buy it, and think it a very big deal, after acknowledging and brushing aside some of the ample reasons for skepticism:
Media
June 20, 2006
The Ghana-Israel Connection
In this week's special World Cup edition of Zooming In, Gelf's quasi-weekly roundup of undercovered local stories from around the world: An inappropriate Swedish booty call; a Brazilian soccer diaspora; and more Togo drama. One of our favorites deals with an Israeli flag appearance in the Ghana-Czech Republic game.
Sports
June 14, 2006
Sports Journalism's Odd Odds
In preview articles for major sporting events, one of the easiest ways for journalists to cover lots of teams or players is to rank them. But some writers, striving to be hip to many sports fans' fascination with gambling, like to give odds on who will win the championship. Take Gary Van Sickle's recent piece on this week's US Open for SI.com. In his quest to be entertaining and informative, though, Van Sickle succumbs to the innumeracy that still pervades much of journalism.
Sports
June 13, 2006
All You Other Dick Cheneys Are Just Imitating
In a recent post, Gelf discussed ESPN2 soccer broadcasters' factoid-finding mission into the heart of first-time World Cup participant Togo. But it seems the 2crew forgot the most important fact: Togo is coached by none other than Vice President Dick Cheney.
Sports
June 13, 2006
World Cup Commentators Go on Factoid-Finding Mission
In the US, soccer broadcasts are meeting the CIA World Factbook, and the result isn't pretty. On Wednesday morning's ESPN2 broadcast of Togo vs. South Korea, ESPN's Adrian Healey commented to his partner, Tommy Smyth, that Togo is "almost shaped like a finger." He added, "it's so thin they actually can't print the name on maps of the world." Tommy remarked, "Agriculture represents 65% of the labor force." And Smyth piped in, "It's considered the African capital of magic!" Later in the game, a graphic in the upper left corner fo the screen informed the viewer that Togo was roughly the size of West Virginia.
Media
June 12, 2006
Of Brangelina and Husni
People—the magazine—paid millions of dollars for exclusive rights to the Brangelina baby pictures, only to have some of those photos leaked onto Gawker and a few other celebrity blogs days before it went to press. This is the subject of a hard-hitting article in the New York Times, which asks, "But did the Internet publication of the pictures really undermine People's publicity plan?" Let's go to the experts.
Sports
June 5, 2006
Why They Hate Us, World Cup Edition
The US media has come a long way in the four years since the last World Cup—and still has a long way to go. The good: ESPN is getting behind-the-scenes footage of the US team; Sports Illustrated and the New York Times's sports magazine, Play, both ran multi-part previews on their covers; and several newspapers, like the New York Daily News, already have reporters on site. The bad: Columnists who don't know much about soccer feel compelled to write about it.
Media
June 2, 2006
It's Like Raine on Your Spelling Bee
Ursprache is, according to Wikipedia, a protolanguage: either "a language that preceded a certain set of given languages," or "a system of communication during a stage in glottogony that may not yet be properly called a language." It is also the word spelled last night by 13-year-old Katharine Close to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee. And it also seems to describe the system of communication used by the New York Daily News. For surely if it were using an actual language, the newspaper wouldn't misspell the crucial word of a spelling-bee article.
Sports
June 1, 2006
Sports' Assault on Language
Imagine there's a goal you desperately want to achieve. If you succeed in reaching an intermediate goal, your chance of achieving the end goal rises from 50% to 66%. If you fail at that intermediate goal, it falls to 34%. Is that intermediate goal "critically important"? Absolutely, definitely, 110%, according to ESPN's SportsCenter.
Media
May 31, 2006
Pimp My Post
Ever since MTV launched the hit show Pimp My Ride—hosted by the rapper Xzibit—two years ago, headline writers around the country have taken the opportunity to use the new lingo to, well, pimp their articles. The most recent example comes from a New York Times article about—or should I say paean to—high-end outdoor cooking entitled Pimp My Grill. But there are many others:
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