Fraters Libertas

The Long Goodbye

Imagine you are employed in a job in your professional field of interest. One that pays six figures, provides a daily creative outlet, and requires so little commitment and/or effort on your part that you could work another full time job at the same time and still have all of the leisure time you wish. Would you ever voluntarily quit that job?

It’s hard for to me to imagine the circumstances that would draw a “yes” to this question. But that’s what we’re supposed to believe about Star Tribune sports columnist Dan Barreiro. A guy claiming he quit the cushy world of sportswriting, while his former employer claims somewhat more ambiguous circumstances. And now THREE WEEKS LATER, he’s just getting around to writing his final column. Doesn’t sound much like a guy in a hurry to go. Or like a guy whom management was hounding to leave. Strange situation. One for which I wish we had an independent press to ferret out the truth behind this high profile curiosity. Something tells me if this situation were occurring in government or a similarly high profile private business, the Star Tribune would be assigning a reporter or two to cover the case.

Whatever the reasons of his departure, with today’s column, I’m assuming he’s gone for good. And Twin Cities sports readers are well rid of this sportswriter who didn’t know a lot about sports, didn’t write very well, and who didn't care either way. Don't believe my characterization is correct? I’ll Barreiro's self-written career obituary provide the evidence:

If you grew up reading Chicago newspaper legend Mike Royko, and you wanted to become a writer, you knew two things. The first was that you'd never come remotely close to carrying Royko's jock. The second was that you should write what your gut tells you, and care not what feathers you ruffle. You learn that sometimes your judgment will be on the money, and many other times it will be breathtakingly off the mark.

That paragraph pinpoints the exact reasons Barreiro failed in his job. First, his casual acceptance of mediocrity. The attitude of ‘I’ll never be Royko, so why even try for excellence?’ Second, his casual acceptance of being wrong, (“breathtakingly off the mark”), many times. I understand that no one can be right all of the time, but you’d like to get the sense that a newspaper columnist would actually care about being completely wrong so often. And in an attempt to improve, understand his errors, maybe openly acknowledge them at the time, then work his ass off to make sure they don’t happen again. But according to Barreiro, being wrong was expected in the business, quite often. So why lose any sleep over it?

Which brings us to the most damning flaw of his approach to writing. His belief that his role was nothing more than providing opinion and judgment on an issue. Write what your gut tells you, don’t bother to do research or backgrounding or actually attempt to understand the complexities of the world you’re paid to write about. Hell, if you actually did those things, you might not be able to do a full time radio gig at the same time. Or see every single movie that’s released in theaters and watch the Sopranos and every other program your premium satellite package provides (the reports on which provide hours of filler material for the radio show, instead of talking about sports.)

More egregious yet, he admits he sometimes knew his columns were wrong in advance and printed them anyway:

Little secret: There were countless times when, in hindsight, I heartily disagreed with myself, if that makes any sense at all.

Yes it makes sense. Countless times he published something just to get a reaction, whether he believed it or not. Thus wasting the time of every person who chose to read him that day. An admission I’d hope would be a firing offense at any newspaper. But I suspect the publishers of the Star Tribune don’t have any more respect for the audience than Barreiro does.

Ask Barreiro what he thought is job was, he’d tell you it was to simply provide a judgment on issues in the sports world. As if that’s what people need from a professional newspaper man to help them understand a story - another unconsidered opinion. In fact, an unconsidered opinion is the only thing the reader already has when opening up the newspaper. No one needs another judgment, especially one the writer himself casually admits was breathtakingly off the mark and often times not even taken seriously by himself.

What we do need from the writer is knowledge and the ability to effectively communicate that knowledge. And you don't have to be as excellent as Royko to do that. In terms of sports, learn about th game and tell me something I didn't know about it. The strategy, the gamesmanship, the sportsmaship, the skills involved. Describe a critical play in vivid language that allows those who didn’t see it the opportunity to envision it in their minds. Occasionally attempt to frame a story using an emotion besides sneering cynicism. These should be the basic job description of a professional sports writer. Instead, with Barreiro and guys like him (Sansevere), we get nothing more than opinions. Right, wrong, believe it, don’t believe, doesn’t matter, just publish and collect a paycheck. And make sure you get to your radio gig on time.

UPDATE: Mitch Berg provides a half dozen additional reasons to be glad Barreiro's toast.