Opinions are free but must still be handled with care
There is so much possibility for good, be it informative or entertaining.
Opinions are free and we must be grateful for that. But they’re priceless too and must be handled with care. It’s not enough to downplay spiteful paragraphs as just another harmless wind-up.
Consequently, those who are gripped by a narcissistic urge to use their weekly opinion inches as a means of pouring scorn on those they assume to be more ignorant than they are, these columnists render the future of the freedom of the press a little more uncertain.
Obviously, one anarchic, misinformed writer isn’t going to bring the whole thing crashing down but given what has been brought to light in London since last summer, disenfranchising readers is not the way forward.
Not that I would advocate against poking fun at people.
Nor would I dare suggest that any sport or any set of people within a particular sport should be spared if deemed worthy of satire.
Our responsibility is to be informed and to choose the worthiest targets.
Responsibility might seem like an archaic concept but it still holds true in spite of all the radical changes that have occurred in the last decade.
It is a privilege to be able to express an opinion like I’m doing now. Readers deserve better than someone who wields a pen like a leaky petrol pump. They don’t need to be preached to by someone who actually enjoys when their views blow up in everybody’s face, all the better to boost their profile.
Simply put, the newspaper industry is too flimsy these days to let its prominent voices scorch the earth like this.
Anyone who derides readers or sports fans who happen to be a little less equipped when it comes to digesting opinions and correctly channelling their passions and frustrations is choosing a soft target just for the sake of it.
Columnists like these make me all the sadder that someone like the Washington City Paper’s Dave McKenna has left the trade.
Unfortunately, the whittling down of resources required to keep all the Dave McKennas and his kind on board is what is threatening to sink the entire ship. McKenna was an industry hero in the US last year after the billionaire owner of the team he covered, the Washington Redskins, tried and failed to sue him and his newspaper.
Not many people outside the US capital knew much about McKenna before the high profile court case. He was just one voice — although admittedly a prominent one — who harangued the man at the top, armed to the teeth with facts and a sharp eye for the absurd.
Throwing 20 inches about myopic sports fans on a page is easy. For McKenna, that would have been a waste of precious ink better employed exposing the likes of Dan Snyder, a man who treated paying NFL fans with disdain. Ripping out seats to reduce capacity and get around TV blackout laws despite claiming there was a waiting list of 200,000 for season tickets; publicly promising a new training structure for players without ever going through the proper channels for planning permission; banning fans from bringing signs to the stadium (for fear of free speech being employed a little too liberally) before an uproar caused a U-turn.
So impressive was the list of ills that 14 months ago McKenna wrote a lengthy A-Z of all Snyder’s flaws, both criminal and eccentric. As a result, he found himself the subject of a $2m libel lawsuit. Snyder would subsequently admit to never having read the piece which so irked him.
This month, I had the privilege of attending a talk given by McKenna in Greenwich Village. He was a humble speaker, eager to highlight the high comedy of what at times was a frightening situation. At one point, lawyers for Snyder threatened to seize all email communication between him and Washington Post journalist (and friend) Dan Steinberg. The pair responded by offering to bring their correspondence to the stage for a dramatic re-enactment.
Outrageous as this suggestion may seem, highlighting injustice and cutting down corruption and sleaze at the knees is one of journalism’s most rewarding aspects. It’s what keeps the readers interested. But imagine being taken to court for satire like McKenna or The Guardian’s Marina Hyde? That’s the dream.
People underestimate American journalism but they do satire and sneering as well as the best of them. They just know who really deserves to be taken down a peg or two. And when they do it, they do it right. It’s frustrating that far too many members of this dying industry get it so badly wrong.
* john.w.riordan@gmail.com Twitter: JohnWRiordan
