A blow for sportswriting in Super Bowl week should remind us who really wins

The Washington Post sports section existed with a seriousness of purpose. This week, the newspaper eliminated it in its entirety.

WORDS ON THE STREET: Washington Post employees and supporters rally outside the newspaper’s offices this week after its billionaire owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, announced major job cuts, saying ‘painful’ restructuring was needed. Pic Oliver Contreras/AFP/Getty

Before mourning yet another blow to sportswriting and the general unease that accompanies the sense that everything is getting worse, it is worth answering a more fundamental question: What is a sports section for? To miss a sports section you must first appreciate the sports section. To appreciate the sports section you must, on some instinctive level, understand what the sports section is for. 

It is many things to many people. One person’s insight is another’s entertainment. It can be for clarity rather than catharsis: to understand Ireland’s deflating loss to France on Thursday or to further fuel the rage against it. It can also be purely for distraction, or even a mistake as your thumb accidentally hits the link during another mindless doomscroll. (If that is you, fair play for sticking with it until the second paragraph.)