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The New York Times to disband its sports department

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Re: The New York Times to disband its sports department

#61

Post by dangus »

alejohausner wrote: post #50

Good riddance! I got tired of opening the sports section to find another story about how violent athletes are to their spouses, or how unfair high schools are to transgender women. It seemed like the writers were more concerned about signaling their virtuous views of social issues, laundering their own privileged backgrounds by pretending to care. Sports writing isn't about human rights or social issues. It is about…

> Sports writing isn't about human rights or social issues.

Yeah, you’re just factually wrong.

Figures like Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabar, all the way up to Kolin Kaepernick and Brittney Griner[1] are wrapped up in human rights and social issues.

There isn’t some kind of magical barrier between sports and real life. It’s a social activity that takes place within wider society.

To millions of fans, players are influential voices.

You can be as sports-macho and anti-woke as you want but that won’t bring you closer to truth and understanding.

[1] who was definitely not jailed in Russia for drugs, let’s be real: she’s an LGBT person and advocate, and Russia is an anti-LGBT mafia state.

Re: The New York Times to disband its sports department

#62

Post by [deleted] »

tivert wrote: post #35
delfinom wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, I subscribe to the NYT but they've been pushing more and more opinion articles to the top that seem to really be about gaslighting their subscribers. Recent example, there was a opinion piece about "how people were obsessed with the rich people in the sub but not the migrants in the mediterranean" roughly. You know, completely gaslighting the fact that the readers had zero say in the coverage decisions of t…

> You know, I subscribe to the NYT but they've been pushing more and more opinion articles to the top... Yeah. Recently I've noticed they've promoted "Opinion" over "World" in their app. World News used to be the second section after "Most Popular"; now it's 3rd, after "Games" and "Opinion. IMHO, it's a bad sign. One of the main reasons I subscribed to them was I liked their in-depth coverage of world news, specifica…

[deleted]

Re: The New York Times to disband its sports department

#63

Post by xhkkffbf »

This is also kind of a union maneuver. They push sportsball news into a different corporation with a different union. They'll bring over a few articles about the Yankees to keep the subscribers happy but the net result will be fewer reporters under the News Guild contract.

Re: The New York Times to disband its sports department

#64

Post by boeingUH60 »

dangus wrote: post #61
alejohausner wrote: post #50

Good riddance! I got tired of opening the sports section to find another story about how violent athletes are to their spouses, or how unfair high schools are to transgender women. It seemed like the writers were more concerned about signaling their virtuous views of social issues, laundering their own privileged backgrounds by pretending to care. Sports writing isn't about human rights or social issues. It is about…

> Sports writing isn't about human rights or social issues. Yeah, you’re just factually wrong. Figures like Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabar, all the way up to Kolin Kaepernick and Brittney Griner[1] are wrapped up in human rights and social issues. There isn’t some kind of magical barrier between sports and real life. It’s a social activity that takes place within wider society. To mi…

> Who was definitely not jailed in Russia for drugs, let’s be real: she’s an LGBT person and advocate, and Russia is an anti-LGBT mafia state.

She was jailed for being a high-profile American, perfect bait to trade for a notorious weapons smuggler imprisoned in the US...she had played in Russia since 2014, so if anti-LGBT was the motivation, they could have grabbed her since.

Re: The New York Times to disband its sports department

#65

Post by klooney »

mildavw wrote: post #51

Damn. I haven’t read much of The Athletic (don’t have that subscription level) but I’ve enjoyed NYT sports coverage for forever. They always seemed to have interesting, subtle, and original takes on whatever they were covering. More “literary” than your typical ESPN or other major network coverage.

The Athletic does really good work, both on the beat level and for higher level analysis stuff.

Re: The New York Times to disband its sports department

#66

Post by LargeTomato »

dangus wrote: post #61
alejohausner wrote: post #50

Good riddance! I got tired of opening the sports section to find another story about how violent athletes are to their spouses, or how unfair high schools are to transgender women. It seemed like the writers were more concerned about signaling their virtuous views of social issues, laundering their own privileged backgrounds by pretending to care. Sports writing isn't about human rights or social issues. It is about…

> Sports writing isn't about human rights or social issues. Yeah, you’re just factually wrong. Figures like Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabar, all the way up to Kolin Kaepernick and Brittney Griner[1] are wrapped up in human rights and social issues. There isn’t some kind of magical barrier between sports and real life. It’s a social activity that takes place within wider society. To mi…

I think the majority of sports watchers don't care about politics.

>> Sports writing isn't about human rights or social issues.

> Yeah, you’re just factually wrong.

Well, that's a very strong statement but I think you're correct. I'd rephrase the original comment as

*Most* Sports writing isn't about human rights or social issues.

Re: The New York Times to disband its sports department

#67

Post by massysett »

DaveExeter wrote: post #52
massysett wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They never had a monopoly: direct mail, billboards, Yellow Pages, TV, radio, leaflets…

The local movie theatre wasn't going to be advertising show times anywhere but it the newspaper! If you wanted to sell a car, or fill a job opening, or rent out an apartment, you needed to advertise in the classifieds.

There were classifieds other than the daily paper. All around town were newspaper boxes with ads for cars, apartments, and jobs. There were also weekly papers with classifieds.

Even during the time when towns had just one daily paper, this paper did not have a monopoly on nearly any form of advertising.

Re: The New York Times to disband its sports department

#68

Post by stcroixx »

LargeTomato wrote: post #66
dangus wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sports writing isn't about human rights or social issues. Yeah, you’re just factually wrong. Figures like Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabar, all the way up to Kolin Kaepernick and Brittney Griner[1] are wrapped up in human rights and social issues. There isn’t some kind of magical barrier between sports and real life. It’s a social activity that takes place within wider society. To mi…

I think the majority of sports watchers don't care about politics. >> Sports writing isn't about human rights or social issues. > Yeah, you’re just factually wrong. Well, that's a very strong statement but I think you're correct. I'd rephrase the original comment as *Most* Sports writing isn't about human rights or social issues.

Agreed, and also I think most people interested in reading about sports have not been going to the NYT for that particularly because they only use it as a backdrop for their stories, which are primarily about some other topic.

Re: The New York Times to disband its sports department

#69

Post by gaws »

alejohausner wrote: post #50

Good riddance! I got tired of opening the sports section to find another story about how violent athletes are to their spouses, or how unfair high schools are to transgender women. It seemed like the writers were more concerned about signaling their virtuous views of social issues, laundering their own privileged backgrounds by pretending to care. Sports writing isn't about human rights or social issues. It is about…

> I got tired of opening the sports section to find another story about how violent athletes are to their spouses, or how unfair high schools are to transgender women. It seemed like the writers were more concerned about signaling their virtuous views of social issues, laundering their own privileged backgrounds by pretending to care. ... Sports writing isn't about human rights or social issues. It is about contention, about struggle. As George Orwell put it,

Don't worry. That kind of coverage in sports will still happen:

> A group on the business desk will cover money and power in sports, while new beats covering sports will be added to other sections. The moves are expected to be completed by the fall.

Re: The New York Times to disband its sports department

#70

Post by dangus »

LargeTomato wrote: post #66
dangus wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sports writing isn't about human rights or social issues. Yeah, you’re just factually wrong. Figures like Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabar, all the way up to Kolin Kaepernick and Brittney Griner[1] are wrapped up in human rights and social issues. There isn’t some kind of magical barrier between sports and real life. It’s a social activity that takes place within wider society. To mi…

I think the majority of sports watchers don't care about politics. >> Sports writing isn't about human rights or social issues. > Yeah, you’re just factually wrong. Well, that's a very strong statement but I think you're correct. I'd rephrase the original comment as *Most* Sports writing isn't about human rights or social issues.

> I think the majority of sports watchers don't care about politics.

75% of Americans are sports fans and 48% of Americans say they follow government and public affairs most of the time. Only 10% of Americans are politically disengaged.

Over 60% of Americans voted in the 2020 election, a record high.

It's not out of the realm of possibility that over 50% of all Americans both watch sports and care at least somewhat about politics.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/300148/interest-nfl-foot...

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/07/07/1-in-10-a...

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/04/record-high-t...

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