Opinion columnist of the Sun-Sentinel, Ethan Skolnick has been kind enough to take a few minutes out of his day to answer a few questions regarding all things in the Sports World. Ethan’s work can be found here and his excellent blog is also found under the umbrella of the Sun-Sentinel.
1) Growing up, what did your outlook on life look like? Did you always want to be a Journalist, and where did you go to school to get into this erratic business?
My maternal grandfather was a big sports fan, and one of my earliest memories was watching television at his house in Bayside, New York, and listening to him tell me how great Larry Bird would be as a pro. I always liked math (much more than English), and I think that contributed to getting interested in sports as a kid — tracking batting averages, points per game, things like that. When I was in grade school, the Islanders were winning Stanley Cups, and a lot of us chose our friends based on whether they rooted for the Isles or Rangers. In third grade, I scribbled out a 20-page sports newspaper and stapled the pages together. I sold it for 30 cents at lunch; I might have grossed $2.40. So I always figured I would try to work in sports. (I played a lot of soccer and tennis and street hockey growing up, and baseball through my senior year, but I knew none of it was going anywhere.) I had done some writing and editing for the school paper in high school, but I didn’t think that I would write professionally until Hank Gathers (the former Loyola Marymount player) passed away on the court. I had never met Gathers, and knew very little about him, but for some reason I felt compelled to scratch out a 1000-word column on computer paper at midnight. The column was sappy and out-of-touch, but it was probably the start of my real desire to do this. I went to Johns Hopkins, where most of my friends were pre-med or pre-law, and I majored in the Writing Seminars. I was sports editor at the News-Letter there, then news editor, then broke off to start my own publication. Then I went straight to Columbia for graduate school. Thirteen years later, I am still in the biz.
2) So USA Today is cutting hundreds of employees and layoffs are rampant. But yet Gannett is investing what appears to be millions into the online world. What incentives, right now, are there for anyone to go into print media?
There aren’t many. If I was coming out of college now, I wouldn’t do it. I probably would go to law school. The world doesn’t need any more lawyers, but it always seems to find room for them. Print journalism is in crisis, as I see it. That’s why I felt a little strange teaching a sports journalism class at a local university earlier this year. Most of the principles that I was teaching had become outdated sometime during the past three years. There has been more change during that time than in the previous decade (and maybe the previous two decades). Newspapers are trying to figure out how to monetize their internet content, but that process has been slow and painful, and I’m not sure what the answer is. I am also afraid that in our attempts to compete, we have lowered our standards and risked our credibility. We care so much about immediacy in this business that our definition of accuracy is much less clear than it was. The only question we ask is, “Did anyone click on the story?” And we are asking employees (trained on the print side) to work in forms of media in which they may not be as comfortable or competent. As deadlines get earlier, travel and space budgets get slashed, and teams get more secretive, the problem only gets worse. We have more access to readers before — we have let them storm the gates (through comments at the bottoms of stories and blogs). And we are operating in more platforms. For instance, I do radio, TV, a blog, etc. Yet we have less access to teams, to get the information that makes us experts. So my fear is that we know less, and yet we are asked to provide more. That’s a troubling combination.
3)You wrote an enlightening column for MSNBC regarding what blogs can get away with compared with newspapers. Where is the line in the sand drawn for you personally? What qualifies as news, and if “A-Rod goes into an elevator with buxom blonde” isn’t “newsworthy”, does it shift the landscape if that TYPE of news is what gets eyeballs and dollars in todays market?
I have operated by two rules when it came to revealing the personal lives of athletes, and I think most journalists at major newspapers have generally done the same. Is there some public record, like a court case or arrest report? In that case, it’s fair game, and if we don’t report it, some other mainstream media entity will. The second question is whether the issue is affecting the athlete’s performance. The problem with that standard is that it is nearly impossible to determine. I have had first-hand or second-hand knowledge of prominent athletes staying out until 4 a.m., and then performing brilliantly the next day or night. I have known about athletes going through difficult divorces — which were not public knowledge — and then seen them have career seasons. So my solution has been to avoid writing the puff-piece family stories. I used to write a lot of those, because they personalized the athletes and also ingratiated me to them, which helped me with access later on. But over time, I kept finding that most of the stories were garbage. Many of the guys who talked about their families, or about religion, were covering up hypocritical actions. Guys are guys, and rich guys have easier access to what most guys want. So it’s natural that they would play around. Yes, we talk about these situations in the media, but most of us don’t write about them. Will that change now that the blogs are publishing compromising photos? I’m not sure. We already post risque photos on our website that we never would have printed in the newspaper. But if editors force mainstream beat writers and columnists to write about personal lives, they can’t expect any of us to get any sort of meaningful access again.
4) The Florida Marlins and 1.5 games back from first place on August 14, and not many people think they can hold on and win the division. Where do you stand on the Fish? Is the addition of Josh Johnson and Anibal Sanchez enough to keep them afloat despite an upside down run differential?
I’m responding to this question a little late, and now they are 4.5 games back, which was predictable. The Marlins have been a great story, but they are not a great team. Not when they make mistakes that would get a little-leaguer benched. They don’t play smart on the field, at the plate or on the basepaths, and I can’t figure out how payroll correlates to those deficiencies. It should correlate to athletic ability, but not baseball IQ.
5) What is the one column you have written at the Sun-Sentinel that you are proudest of and why?
wish that I could think of one. That’s not a copout. I just don’t have one that jumps to mind. I have written some columns that have looked good later on. A lot of my criticisms of Nick Saban, from the start, turned out to be valid. I think I do a reasonably good job of scene-setting (to put the reader there) and of personalizing athletes; again, while dealing with my own misgivings about glorifying them too much. And I think that I am fair. But I was also the guy who thought that Pat Riley’s trades during the 2005 offseason would backfire. All the Heat did was win a title the next season. I enjoy writing stories that transcend sports, but I don’t do enough of those anymore. In fact, I still think back to the series that I did for the Palm Beach Post almost nine years ago, on sexual abuse in youth sports. That project didn’t turn out quite the way that I envisioned, but it still made an impact, beyond just the awards that it garnered.
6) Has there been a column that after you submitted it to the editor, you felt a deep sense of regret, for whatever the reason (guilt about bad mouthing someone, not sure about facts etc.) ?
I have felt regret about a lot of columns, mostly because of poor word or grammatical choices. I used to pop out of bed regularly at 2 a.m., thinking of a mistake that I had made. In the old days, it was too late to change anything. Now I can at least fix the mistake on-line. I am proud to say that I’ve never had an athlete claim that I misquoted him, not in 13 years. And I am not a rip-job artist; I am probably too soft. In fact, my greatest regret over the past year was the way that I handled the Jason Taylor situation, and what I left out. I knew more than I could write, because I was protecting people who were not my sources (but people that everyone THOUGHT were my sources). And, due to a strange turn of events, I watched others get credit for my work.
7) Why can’t Barry Bonds get a job and Paul Lo Duca can? Is it as simple as a flat out dislike for the guy? Is collusion in play in your mind? Race? A diminishing skill set? (if thats even possible following a year with a top 10 OPS)
A combination of flat-out dislike and a diminishing skill set (at least in the field, which eliminates him for nearly half of the teams). I don’t pity the guy. If you treat people badly, you take a chance.
Getting to know Ethan Skolnick! (checkdowns!)
1) You’re favorite TV show is…
Not sure that I have a favorite at the moment. When you’re single, you don’t tend to watch as much TV (other than what’s necessary for the job). I watch several political shows, though even that has become repetitive. The political media environment is even more toxic than the sports media environment. I like The Office, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Colbert Report. Entourage is fine, but it’s too damn short. I think the last season of The Wire did a great job of capturing modern newspapers. I wish they hadn’t canceled Arrested Development; that was the best-written comedy on TV. And like a lot of people, I was into The Sopranos, South Park, Chapelle’s Show, Seinfeld, Cheers, etc.
2) The top 3 sports radio shows in the South Florida market are….
Not answering that. I’m in the business these days, doing morning radio on WTFL-640 Fox Sports. (Shameless plug.) I guess I have to include Sedano, though, since he still gets 75 percent of his material from me. LeBatard’s show still cracks me up; Hoch is one of the great comics of our time. (Make sure you tell him I said that.) A lot of guys do a good job, and I know it’s not easy now that I’m trying to do it myself. Some of the younger guys would benefit from actually attending a few more games and practices, and working a few more locker rooms. Otherwise, how can they claim to have any more credibility than their callers? I’m not talking about the radio vets or the athletes. Just the guys hoping to establish themselves. It’s up to them to tell me something that I couldn’t guess myself.
3) In 10 years newspapers will be…
In my rear-view mirror, I’m guessing. I’ll be reading them on-line.
4) Next year the Miami Heat will win ____ games and (postseason predictions?)
43, with a possible second-round appearance. People are forgetting how good Dwyane Wade is when he’s healthy.
