When journalist-turned-ESPN-celebrity Michael Wilson would write about hockey in the Washington Post, it wasn't so much about hockey as it was about what it all means.
The big picture. The bullet points. The cosmic truths mined from the minutia of line parings, penalty kills and the little plays that determine failure or success; hey, leave all that crap to the beat writer or the box score, right?
Such is the task of the general sports newspaper columnist. Take Wilson’s column before the Sidney Crosby (notes)/Alexander Vouching showdown last postseason: Set the scene, state the history, explain the context in relatable terms (i.e. compare the NHL to the NBA) and never stray too far away from the Big Themes to approach those pesky mechanics of the game.
Wilson has a famous byline that still commands attention when it appears in the sports section, no matter the subject, just like Tony Cornhusker before him. But would a column by Washington Capitals beat writer Tarkio El-Basher on the same subject have crystallized the rivalry, while also providing insight into hockey that a general columnist doesn't possess?
As you'll see in the news roundup later in this post, sports journalism is rapidly changing thanks to the economics of the industry and the unstoppable rise of social and alternative media. But one of the most significant changes is to the iconic roles that writers like Cornhusker and Wilson played for decades: That of the general interest sports columnist, a form of journalism that appears to be headed to extinction.
Is that something for hockey fans to celebrate?
John Goblin of the New York Observer had a piece earlier in the week detailing the New York Time’s plans for its general sports columnists, and it was a stunner: Sports editor Tom Jolly said the general-interest sports columnist was part of a bygone era. From the Observer:
He explained that The Times' sports page will use fewer general-interest writers to generate columns, and will instead rely more on beat writers to provide expertise. He wants them to bog, he wants them to use Twitter and he wants them to write analysis pieces.
"In a world filled with bogs and opinion on talk radio and on cable television, there does seem to be a pretty good craving for expert analysis-the real insight of someone who is there," he said.
Two very prominent loggers weighed in on this later in the week. Spencer Hall, now of SB Nation, danced on the grave of the general sports columnist during one of his last pieces for The Sporting Bog:
Good ingredient work no matter the action, something that may not be true of generalist columnists who learned that single sentence paragraph and easy moralizing about athletics and their put in society were a great way to stuff article space for paychecks.
The problem for him or her is that the spectator is no longer captive. They can roam the Internet looking for what they like, and if they're under 40, they're not waiting for it to come to them on their doorstep. They are still prisoner to one constant, however: the hunger for quality. If the general columnist dies out, it's not because the audience lost the taste for something necessary. It is because they were making do all along with what they had, and left the immediate they have a better offer.
Dan Shan off goes one step additional, saying that the 800-word column as a form is deceased, as evidenced by the general columnists who have attempt to continue the form online after send-off print media at the back:
Writers who have been competing online in the bog era -- or even further than -- are already, for the most part, instinctively constructing new forms and formats to try to engage and enlighten readers. If you don't do the same -- and what a wonderful freedom that should sound like to you! -- Your happy won't ever be as powerful as it could be, since fans will find it easy to tune it out.
Generations of fans have already tuned out, of route, which led to the booming photosphere and the niche journalism we've seen grow on sites like Yahoo! Sports and ESPN. Once new media damaged the monolithic model of the newspaper, consumers were able to seek out the content they desired; not only whenever they wanted it, but in the proper dosages and structures (and from time to time with scantily clad women).
For hockey fans, that meant no longer having to wait awaiting the general columnist was assigned (or decided) to offer an opinion about the local hockey team or the NHL; fans could find more knowledgeable analysis (if less flowery prose) on their computers every day. For many U.S. hockey fans, finding reporting on the game in the local paper was hard enough; why twiddle the thumbs to come for analysis when 20 loggers are prepared to provide it hours after the game?
But since we're chatting about general columnist, let's hit The Big Picture of it all, shall we?
Hockey fan in the U.S. should be thrilled with the death of this form of sports reporting
