{"id":894,"date":"2007-09-25T09:52:42","date_gmt":"2007-09-25T16:40:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=894"},"modified":"2007-12-06T15:59:55","modified_gmt":"2007-12-06T22:47:55","slug":"no-lipstick-for-the-dodger-pig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=894","title":{"rendered":"No Lipstick for the Dodger pig"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matt Welch writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Of all the lowliest (and most punishing) forms of journalism there are in our marvelous culture of media plenty<\/strong><\/a>, post-game baseball call-in shows possibly rank in the lowest quintile. And I say that as someone who probably spends more man-hours per annum listening to "Angel Talk" than reading The New Yorker<\/strong><\/a> and The Atlantic<\/strong><\/a> combined.<\/p>\n

The problems are endless, and structural — callers ranging in sophistication from pre-T-baller to Don Zimmer<\/strong><\/a>, screeners failing to weed out monomaniacs and drunks, and hosts trapped between serving as goodwill ambassador to the fans and loyalist defender of the team. As the fine Dodgers\/Angels blogger Rob McMillin put it recently<\/strong><\/a>, "Sports talk shows are a thankless job, but it’s a heck of a lot easier if the team is in first place."<\/p>\n

There is a root conflict of interest foreign to almost every journalistic job except for the peculiar position of ombudsman<\/strong><\/a> — the primary target of the journalism either pays the radio host’s salary directly (as in the case of the Angels’ Terry Smith), or pays the host’s station a pile of money to broadcast games (as happens with "Dodger Talk" host Bob Harvey). It’s hard enough to pursue journalistic fairness in the absence of financial considerations; next to impossible when the subject of your story holds the whip hand.<\/p>\n

Which Harvey learned (or more likely, re-<\/em>learned) the hard way last week<\/strong><\/a>, when Dodgers PR director Josh Rawitch called him during his broadcast<\/strong><\/a> to label Harvey’s show "an embarrassment." The complaint, as Rawitch laid out on his blog<\/strong><\/a> the next day, goes like this:<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matt Welch writes: Of all the lowliest (and most punishing) forms of journalism there are in our marvelous culture of media plenty, post-game baseball call-in shows possibly rank in the lowest quintile. And I say that as someone who probably … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,222],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","category-matt-welch"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t