media Page 216 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Media Approval Ratings: James Brown
Bill Simmons has implied that the success of CBS' pregame show over FOX's is because James Brown, Harvard grad (and former Atlanta Hawks draft pick), switched to the Eye in 2006. We would like to remind you all, by the way, that this guy hosted "America's Funniest Home Videos." Also, and we didn't r...

Media Approval Ratings: Linda Cohn
In that book thing we just wrote, we referred to Linda Cohn as "competent, and seemingly pregnant every three months." We're not sure that's true anymore, but it really did seem like that for a while, didn't it? Every time you turned on "SportsCenter," there was Linda Cohn, all preggers again. We re...

Media Approval Ratings: Greg Gumbel
To introduce today's Media Approval Ratings discussion feller, we thought we'd head to Wikipedia and see what fascinating facts we could drum up about Greg Gumbel....

Media Approval Ratings: Chris Mortensen
Mr. Mortensen, ESPN's NFL reporter who isn't a cranky old coot, has been on the air less and less in recent years. We always enjoyed him bickering with Bill Parcells, back when they were on NFL Countdown together. Mr. Mortensen certainly receives some credit for siring an actual, real live football ...

Media Approval Ratings: Jim Gray
True story: Way back in 1998, when we were a wee lad logging agate text at The Sporting News, one of the magazine staffers sent a company-wide email after Jim Gray's famous Pete Rose interview demanding that all writers sign a petition saying that Gray should be fired. We found this a bit extreme, a...

Introducing The Media Approval Ratings
One of our favorite features ESPN.com has run is the NFL Coach Approval Ratings. We liked watching the fluctuation, seeing a coach go from 81 percent to 20 percent with one loss. But mostly, we liked the collective wisdom of Crowd. We trust Crowd's judgment. Therefore, we've decided to start a new f...

Could Yahoo! Sports Get Folded Into ESPN?
Like many of you, we've been using Yahoo! Fantasy Sports Games for years; about a decade, actually. It's free, it's easy to navigate, it remembers all your past leagues and it's generally on the good side of the force. Unfortunately, with the news that Microsoft may be trying to buy Yahoo!, there's ...

The Raw Joy Of The Covering The New York Knicks
We know: The life of a beat reporter is a glamorous, joyous one. Every night is like a private party in which there are unicorns and rainbows. But when you're a Knicks beat reporter, you're living the life fantastic....

It's Important That You Know Bill Conlin's Compensation
We had a lot of fun with crotchety old Bill Conlin on Friday, but we had no idea how serious he was about this email business. Apparently, he's been firing off angry emails to random readers for weeks now....

Bill Conlin Probably Just Shouldn't Use Email At All
At this point, the worst thing a "mainstream" reporter can do is make one of those dumb "I hate bloggers" comments. There's no upside to it; even if they're still an excellent reporter, they come across as crotchety, anachronistic and old. It's not really fair to them — it's not like bloggers are tr...



Last night a blogger e-mailed us and claimed he's the guy Detroit News columnist Chris McCosky was talking about in his column about irresponsible bloggers. This goes back a couple years, apparently, including an almost-scuffle at a leukemia benefit. So he responds with, um, heated words. [Mossisms]...

Blogdome: Shameless Plugging for Those Kind Enough to Send Me an E-mail
(Ed. note. Hi! Listen kids, I'm actually doing my Daily Examiner duties as well today, but will be done with it shortly so I can devote the rest of the time to you. Things will get better, oh, in about an hour. For now, I'm frantic and trying to do 15 things at once. Be patient. Thank you. Resume re...

What They Done To Our SI?
If you haven't read Sports Illustrated lately, well, never fear: Slate's Josh Levin has taken care of that for you. And it didn't take him very long. Those of us who remember curling up with an SI for a good hour-plus of intelligent reading probably don't even recognize the magazine anymore; instead...

Dan Patrick Finds Place To Peddle His Wares
We know you've been dying to find out the next move for Dan Patrick. He's got his national radio show now, his Web site and, hopefully, more Applebee's commercials with barbecue sauce all over himself. (Or whatever crappy chain restaurant that was; they all blend into one for us.) Well, Patrick has ...

The Journalists Is Smart And Diligent
How absurd has the the Kobe Bryant story become? There was a rather large media kerfuffle at Lakers practice yesterday revolving around whether or not Kobe had cleaned out his locker. It turned out that he hadn't cleaned out his locker; he had merely cleaned it. Say what you will about the status of...

Look Out Letterman: Here Comes Buck
Not getting enough Joe Buck? Don't worry: There's a possibility he might be coming to a late-night talk show near you....

Hey, Jay: You're A Blogger Now
We, the sports fan, are lost amidst the sea of scandalous sports news. We need someone to guide us ... and not just four times a week either! We need immediate, dashed off, from-the-hip, poorly thought out reactionary prattle on the double. And we need it five times a day. Where, friends, do we look...

Are We Going To Have A Stephen A. Lawsuit?
We can understand if you didn't quite remember this, but Stephen A. Smith actually writes occasionally, if you can count "tapping furiously into a Blackberry" as "typing." But he doesn't do it for the Philadelphia Inquirer anymore, ever since that nasty "reassignment" story the paper ran. So what's ...