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Oct 12 / King Kaufman

ESPN’s Dana O’Neil is anti-“me-ification,” whatever that is

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Dana O'Neil

Dana O'Neil

Dana O’Neil, who covers college basketball for ESPN.com, has written a jeremiad against the “me-ification” of sports journalism.

Writing on the website of the Penn State College of Communications, where she is a member of the advisory board of the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism, O’Neil says the profession “is now overdosing on narcissism.”

“Notice me, hear me, adore me,” she writes in imitation of the zeitgeist. “I am clever. I am loud. I am snarky.”

She admits, “I’m as guilty as anyone,” though it’s not clear what she’s guilty of, other than carrying more tools around with her than she used to, because rather than just writing a story, she now has to tweet, podcast, create video and so on.

O’Neil seems to blame this phenomenon, journalists putting themselves at the center of the story, on the proliferation of platforms. Or to the fact that Twitter is only 140 characters. Or on sports journalists attacking each other. Or something.

It’s a little hard to tell what she’s arguing, because she offers no specifics to help the reader pin down exactly what it is she’s talking about. That’s kind of a basic rule of the kind of good journalism O’Neill seems to be lamenting the death of.

Is this a knock on Skip Bayless and his fellow TV squawkers? Is it an attack on bloggers? O’Neil actually brings up the word “basement” at one point, which is a leading indicator of someone who’s talking about bloggers not having thought through what they’re saying.

Well, whatever it is she’s talking about, it’s the “me-ification” of sports journalism. What do you think? Is that a problem? And if it is … what’s the problem?

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Filed under On media
  • Anonymous

    It’s a massive problem, and she’s right, even if the article didn’t articulate the argument as well as it needed to.

    • Franklin Steele

      If people don’t want any personality in their stories they are more than welcome to just read the AP Wire article and then shut down their computers.

      • Anonymous

        Personality can be had in any story, but it still busts the old Cardinal rule of journalism to include oneself in a story. There are endless ways to color the story, but the constant use of I, Me, My is definitely overboard. I don’t think her story illustrated that the way it needed to, but she’s right.

  • Anonymous

    It has got to be about Bill Simmons, right? For a cogent version of that critique, see DeadSpin’s review of the Very, Very Big Book of Basketball.

    a link:
    http://deadspin.com/5712872/deadspin-classic-bill-simmons-is-not-the-cosmos-the-book-of-basketball-reviewed

    • Anonymous

      Doubt O’Neil would be allowed to criticize ESPN’s most well-known and widely-read columnist on their own website.

  • MDS

    Has anything of any value ever been produced by the Penn State College of Communications Center for Sports Journalism? Everything I’ve ever come across out of that place has been appallingly bad.

  • Bill Matz

    It’s a personality market now, not just in sports journalism, but in the entire world. People have their iPods with only their music collection and no commercials, and facebook with pictures of themselves and their friends, the market demands a more personal sports columnist. Box scores are readily available, anybody can look up stats or figures. Consumers want a simulation of the personal experience they have talking sports with their friends and co-workers and strangers they meet on the street. That’s why we all love sports, isn’t it the camaraderie that draws us around our favorite teams and players, and what gets us through each heartbreaking loss? Furthermore, sports and their coverage are ENTERTAINMENT. As seriously as we all take sports, there is no JOURNALISTIC REQUIREMENT beyond the truth. Nobody wants dull, that’s why newspapers are failing while this “plague” of snarky online bloggers are dominating the market. These times they are a-changin, and I understand these classically trained journalists resist that change, as all incumbents resist the next step, the way my 92-year old grandmother refuses to buy or use a computer. But this resistance to the natural evolution of the business is puzzling, considering if it weren’t for the destruction and reconstruction of previous norms and traditions Ms. Dana O’Neil would be reading her husband’s columns rather than conducting professional locker room interviews.

  • http://twitter.com/Schottey Michael Schottey

    One part writer, one part publicist…I don’t think it’s a “problem” as much as the new reality.

  • Tom Edrington

    Have found that too many writers on BR are guilty of over-using “I” in their articles. That’s fine if you’re an accredited expert on some matter, but it lends more credibility and it’s answering the challenge to write meaningful pieces without using “I” spattered in there 25 times!

  • Macguru

    Writers have an obligation — and certainly the objective — to accumulate readers who now their name, feel a kinship, and are repeat readers. Any person selling wares knows that repeat business is the bedrock of any successful enterprise.
    One of the tools for encouraging people to seek out your articles is to allow them a peek at your personal being.
    This can be dangerous. Not all of us are really likable.
    But for the few of us who are, letting the reader know you is an effective way to build an audience. Readers are attracted to writers they can identify with, who remind them of their humanity and common experience, who give a good personal tale within the story they are reading. Readers want to feel they know the people whose writing they are reading.
    Hence the me-ism that Dana has noticed.
    It is not, usually, a bad thing.
    It is a situation that is largely self-correcting. Writers that over-expose themselves become unattractive and lose readers.
    So I posit it is a non-problem. Dana is reaching for a cause to stake her claim on in sports journalism, but has missed the basket here and the rebound goes to the other team.

  • http://twitter.com/nickmoff Nick Moffitt

    Honestly I think it’s probably the fact that the internet has created a new wave of journalists and sites like B/R take away her views and she’s angry about that. If she used examples I’d have a way better idea of what to say. Seems to me that she just likes taking shots at sites like B/R.

  • Backell35

    Skip Bayless

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Webber/746279580 David Webber

    Sports journalism has always been inherently narcissistic, but so is every other brand of opinionated journalism. You can’t blame someone for wanting to share their ideas.

    Also, check out my latest article on Bleacher Report:

    http://bleacherreport.com/articles/889913-nfl-2011-why-the-washington-redskins-are-the-best-team-in-the-nfc-east

  • Randolph

    The “me-ification” isn’t driven just by writers. News outlets engendered this approach by constanly attributing breaking news stories to their writers. How often have you heard, “This story was broken by our very own…”? Since these companies are pumping themselves up, it only raises the stakes for other companies to do the same as they try to persuade the consumers “We are better at this than that other newspaper/magazine/t.v. show/web site.” If that’s the standard being set, why wouldn’t reporters start doing the same by saying, “I was right,” or “I said it first”? It’s quite annoying.

  • John

    She’s absolutely right. Sports journalism used to be about being a vessel to describe what happened at an event or profiling an athlete or team, etc… Obviously, columnists, who are hired to express opinions, are the exception. Now, far too often writers involve themselves (whether by choice or by assignment) when they aren’t any part of the story.

    So much of what is written today is not what is taught in journalism schools, quality college newspapers or on internships. Sadly, blogging has made it so anyone with a computer can write an “article”, and to the reader – who may not know the difference in a credible journalist and Joe Ihaveanopinionsolistentome – it creates an unfortunate blur.

    It used to be that sportswriters learned their craft covering high school football games on Friday nights. Now, because there are so many fan voices tossing out their thoughts under the guise of “journalism”, that step so often is skipped and the business has reached a somewhat sad state.

    • Anonymous

      Do you know the difference between a credible journalist and Joe Ihaveanopinionsolistentome?

      I bet you do.

      I always hear about this problem, people not being able to tell the difference between credible journalists and non-credible wackos or whatever. But I’ve never heard anyone say, “I can’t tell the difference between a credible journalist and some chump with an opinion.” It’s always those other people.

      We’re the other people. We’re the audience, the readers. We’re pretty smart. Readers don’t get enough credit. We determine for ourselves who is credible and who is not. There are gray areas. There might be people who seem credible who aren’t so credible. That was true in whatever year you think the golden age of traditional journalism was too.

      • MDS

        I agree with you, King, and that’s why I roll my eyes at most of the criticism of Bleacher Report. I’m perfectly capable of differentiating between the good stuff at Bleacher Report (King Kaufman, Michael Schottey, Bethlehem Shoals, etc) and the crap (Top 20 boobtastic athletes). When I judge sports writers I don’t ask to see their resumes so I can determine whether they went to journalism school, did an internship, or covered high school football on Friday nights. I read what they write and judge them based on that.

        • http://twitter.com/Schottey Michael Schottey

          MDS, first, thanks for the shoutout.

          Second, you said perfectly what I would’ve probably been too snarky about. There’s a certain “ad hominem” quality to John’s comment and to many of B/Rs detractors as a whole.

          As an intern editor and now an NFL editor, I can say that there are LOTS of quality writers at B/R–some of them went to J-school, others didn’t.

          Good writing is good writing, period.

      • Mark Jones

        A site like Bleacher Report makes it very difficult to differentiate the good from the bad because of the heavily promoted T&A all over the place. No doubt that – and the lack of B/R addressing that as a detrimental issue – hurts Bleacher Report’s reputation. Plus, there are so many sensationalistic topics that are journalistically irresponsible. Stylistic errors (“they” vs. “it” being one) also are commonplace. So, it is difficult to disagree with John.

        I’m not sure why you felt you needed to take a jab at the respondent to your blog. It makes you come off badly, even if that wasn’t your intention. He didn’t take one at you. He offered an opinion, just like, as your blog stated, so many writers do nowadays.

  • http://twitter.com/KarloSevilla Karlo Sevilla

    I don’t know what exactly Ms. O’Neil means, too. But if it’s about injecting “too much” personality in your work, here’s advice from her colleague Jeff Wagenheim, ESPN’s MMA writer: “…stories…full of personality, while not being all about ‘you, you, you,’ which is important.That’s the big challenge we face as writers who like to inject personality into our work. An editor of mine once told me, ‘The hardest thing to do is to kill your darlings.’ What she meant, of course, was to cut from a story a well-spun phrase that, as much as you love it, doesn’t quite fit or somehow interrupts the flow of the writing. A good thing to keep in mind.”

    I hope this helps.

  • Milch

    She’s talking about you. All attitude, not much skill or effort to report ANYTHING. Dana does a lot of reporting and spends a lot of time with her subjects so that when she’s ready to describe them, she has a depth of emotions and quotes and visuals to work with. You, on the other hand, have been faking it since you were with Salon writing your half-assed little chin-strokers. And the realm is full of guys like you. She’s not talking about Will Leitch, either, or any number of genuinely funny bloggers. She’s talking about smug, self-involved pretenders who’ve spent no time examining the lives of others because, well, no one interests them as much as themselves.