media Page 213 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Media Approval Ratings: Jayson Stark
We miss seeing Jayson Stark on "Baseball Tonight," but all told, we think we probably miss the mustache more. Who wouldn't?...

Tony Kornheiser Leaves The World Of Newspapers
Sad news this morning, and we're pretty sure it's the fault of the goddamned blogs: Tony Kornheiser, after nearly 30 years at the Washington Post, has accepted a buyout from the paper....

Media Approval Ratings: Emmitt Smith
We're not sure if Emmitt Smith is going to lose any face time on ESPN now that Cris Carter is hanging around ... but we have our suspicions. Heck, they didn't even let Emmitt be a part of the draft coverage....

Jason Whitlock Could Use Some Time Off
One of the reasons we decided to skip out on the whole sportswriting/beat reporting business, back when we had the opportunity, was the perfectly legitimate fear that we would become burned out on sports. Sports is a diversion, something that should be used as an brief alternative to regular daily l...

The Era Of Hannah Storm's Sports Center Will Blow (In) Soon
On Saturday, SI.com's Richard Deitsch revealed that ESPN was plopping long-time sports-and-news talking head Hannah Storm into the new morning slot for Sports Center. Tomorrow, ESPN will make the formal announcement at upfront presentations, the big-snazzy press conference done to get the advertiser...

Media Approval Ratings: Peter King
We were fortunate enough to meet Peter King once. We introduced ourselves, and he looked us up and down, not malevolently, and said, "How did you end up doing this?" We think he was referring to life as a professional blogger, rather than the fact that we were juggling octopi at the time....

Media Approval Ratings: Tony Reali
We sometimes wonder if old-school on-air sports personalities resent Tony Reali. His "rise" from researcher in 2000 to host of his own show today was ridiculously swift, and, frankly, the type of thing that should scare them a lot more than some silly blog....

Media Approval Ratings: John Madden
Hey, when's a better time to take a look at John Madden in these rankings than the beginning of May? We can't think of a more apt moment in time....

Media Approval Ratings: John Kruk
We remember, when John Kruk left "The Best Damn Sports Show" to join "Baseball Tonight," we worried that it would dumb down the show. At the time, it was pretty much Tim Kurkjian, Peter Gammons, Jayson Stark ... a bunch of smart baseball people discussing the great game. Kruk was a different kind of...

Media Approval Ratings: Norman Chad
First off, don't get our own Rick Chandler started on poker analyst and "comedy" columnist Norman Chad. You really don't want to know....

On Race, Message Boards And Shutting The Hell Up
Of all the panels on "Costas Now" the other night, the one we thought was most effective at tickling the cerebral cortex was the last one, about race, featuring Cris Carter, Michael Wilbon and Jason Whitlock. (It was so absorbing that "Costas Now" is doing a full 90-minute segment just on race down ...

Media Approval Ratings: Jay Mariotti
Of all the Jay Mariotti moments we've chronicled around these parts, our favorite was when he complained to Wikipedia about all those negative words about his page. He is a very sensitive boy....

Media Approval Ratings: John Salley
We felt a little bad about this, considering we were just on the show, but we don't watch The Best Damn Sports Show Period very often. We think it's because we're in New York. It's difficult to keep up with what channel it's even on; we have a lot of sports stations in NYC. But no Big Ten Network or...

Media Approval Ratings: Dan Patrick
Among the many pleasures of "Costas Now" the other night was Dan Patrick explaining how the old "Big Show" was actually named ironically by him and Keith Olbermann. They called it "The Big Show" because they assumed no one was watching and had no numbers or reason to think otherwise. But people were...

Maria Menounos Will Bring Her Swarthy Greek Thunder Side Out
And here's some media-related news that will only be fun for those of us who enjoy TV journalist Maria Menounos' exemplary, hard-hitting work on the Today show and Access Hollywood. From an email:...

Media Approval Ratings: Jason Whitlock
It sure does seem like a long time since Jason Whitlock gave that famous interview to The Big Lead. He really worked for ESPN that long? Oh, ask him about Mike Lupica and Scoop Jackson....

Media Approval Ratings: Michael Wilbon
Watching the NBA Playoffs the last week or so, it's clear Michael Wilbon has appropriately recovered from his mild heart attack last January. And did you know that his wife gave birth just two months later? Nice work, Wilbon!...

Media Approval Ratings: Pam Oliver
We forget, sometimes, just how unstable the life of a broadcast journalist can really be. Witness the following paragraph from Pam Oliver's Wikipedia page....

Media Approval Ratings: Ernie Johnson (Update: Now With Actual VOTING)
After almost universal love tossed in the general direction of the TNT NBA crew, time to look at Ernie Johnson....

Remembering Howard Cosell, 13 Years Later
Howard Cosell died 13 years ago today. You will have to forgive us, and most people who read this site who are younger than us, but Cosell is more a legend among our generation than he is anyone who has a tangible relationship to the way we remember sporting events. Cosell was last on "Monday Night ...