Is Journalism Dead? Sports Journalism May Be.

And, if Bill Madden's most recent New York Daily News column is any indication, sports journalism is really, really, really dead.

A little background:  I have a master's degree in journalism, and experience as a public relations consultant.  In addition, during my time in New York, I briefly worked for a company called Phone Programs, which produced (among other things) a pre-Internet sports scores service called SportsPhone, which provided sports news and score updates.  My PR work was more successful than my SportsPhone work:  I was promoted, then fired, by the company for allegedly not knowing enough about sports.  This begs, of course, the question of how I got promoted in the first place, which in turn makes me suspect that my firing had something to do with my feelings about using the N-word in connection with certain athletes.  Perhaps this is why I have long regarded the term "sports journalism" as oxymoronic.

In any event, I have worked in journalism, I have many hard-working, talented friends the field, and I care greatly about its future.  And, in an Internet-based communications world where anyone with access to a computer can pretend to be a journalist, it's depressing to see how standards have been debased to the point where no one--even professionals--think anything at all about lying, especially if the lying is done to protect a source.

Which, in a roundabout way, brings me back to Madden's column, in which he uses the recent death of umpire Frank Pulli in a desperate attempt to whitewash the unwashable reputation of late Yankees owner George Steinbrenner.  In his column, Madden attempts to find some sort of hypocrisy on the part of former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent for giving Pulli an unannounced probation for gambling and associating with bookmakers, in contrast to the lifetime "ban" Vincent handed to Steinbrenner for the latter's "association" with Howard Spira, even though Vincent himself said that Spira's words couldn't be trusted.

Steinbrenner, however, wasn't merely "associated" with Spira.  He paid Spira $40,000.00 in exchange for Spira's efforts to obtain information Steinbrenner could then use to blackmail Dave Winfield in connection with a dispute between the Yankee owner and his outfielder.  Put simply, Steinbrenner and Spira conspired to commit a crime.  Moreover, the phone conversation that sealed their conspiracy was caught on tape, so Spira's testimony on the matter is irrelevant.  Add to this the fact that Steinbrenner already had a rap sheet in connection with Federal election laws--one that required a Presidential pardon to reinstate his rights as a citizen--and it makes perfect sense that Steinbrenner's punishment was greater than Pulli's.  And none of this even touches the fact that Vincent originally offered Steinbrenner a two-year suspension, which Steinbrenner then negotiated into an "agreement" for a lifetime ban, so that he could continue to work with the U.S. Olympic Committee.  The "agreement" was overturned, once the unpopular-with-owners Vincent was replaced by Bud Selig, was has since effectively acted as a puppet for the owner's interests.

With this column, Madden trades away what little pretense was left to his credentials as a journalist, and announces himself to the world for what he is:  a shill for the Steinbrenner family and, in the process, for a Commissioner's office that is completely controlled by ownership.  If there's any consolation in this fact, it lies solely in the fact that it affirms baseball's role as the national pastime--one that reflects the national tragedy in which money, power and the press conspire against the rest of us.  Madden's craven behavior is not an isolated case; too many of his colleagues exhibit it as well.  Nor is this behavior limited to sports journalism; take a look at Sunday news programs.  Where are the voices of anything other than money, power and the press?

Madden and his ilk betray the history and standards of a noble profession.  In the process, they betray the history and standards of a great nation.  Shame on them.  And shame on us all for tolerating it.