Get Well, Dr. Z.
Every day that goes by seems to provide yet another reason why journalism would be one of the very last careers I would suggest to a young person. Newspapers are either laying off, filing for bankruptcy or going out of business. Magazines are shrinking down in size, dumbing down in content or just disappearing entirely. There never was any money in journalism, but at least there was a little security. Now even that’s gone.
What’s left? No money. Not a lot of respect. Maybe not even much of a future.
What’s left are the reasons newspapers and magazines beat the hell out of cable news, the Internet and yes, blogs, dear readers. The best writers aren’t bloggers or talking heads on CNN, MSNBC or Faux News.
The best writers are real journalists. Trained in journalism schools and born and bred on the inverted pyramid (Who, What, When, and Why) and The Elements of Style.
I feel sorry for anyone who loves sports and thinks sports journalism means ESPN or their dorky yak-fests like Mike and Mike in the Morning, Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption. That’s not journalism. That’s The View with more testosterone and less bitchiness.
If you think the news has been overrun by amateurs and hacks who have no business being given a public outlet for their asinine opinions and observations (I’m looking at you, Sean Hannity and Faux News), get a whiff of some of the crap that rolls out of the mouths of the “experts” that appear on Sportscenter and other ESPN programming.
It takes a sportswriter to make sports journalism special and nobody writes about pro football with the passion, the humor and the total absence of bullshit as Paul “Dr. Z.” Zimmerman, a senior writer who covers the NFL for Sports Illustrated.
You have to understand that for a media junkie, guys like Zimmerman are as vital to the enjoyment of pro football as the games themselves. Any idiot can sit in front of a microphone and tell you who won and who lost. It takes a real writer to make you care why and how they won or lost.
Zimmerman recently suffered two strokes and has lost the abilty to walk or speak. He will be starting rehabilitation soon.
There are a few writers who can make me laugh out loud and Zimmerman is among those few. Like me, he’s a fan of the San Francisco 49ers during their non-sucking seasons when Joe Montana, Bill Walsh, Ronnie Lott and Eddie DeBartolo were the guidling lights to the team’s glory days.
Unfortunately, Sports Illustrated isn’t immune to the layoffs that are ravaging journalism. As part of the TimeWarner media conglomerate, SI has had to take its share of cuts among the 600 staffers that have been slated to be dumped from the magazine division. There are reports that Zimmerman, whose contributions to the magazine have been primarily limited for several years now to the online edition and NFL preview issue was scheduled to be forced into retirement or let go entirely.
Peter King, Zimmerman’s colleage at SI recently wrote a column hailing Dr. Z as “The Best Football Writer of Our Time”
Is a title like that hype? Not as far as I’m concerned. Dr. Z doesn’t do basketball, baseball, boxing, golf or any of those other second-rater sports. He’s a football guy all the way and a NFL football guy no less.
If I can have a career in journalism half as prolific, talented and memorable as Paul Zimmerman’s it will have been a wildly successful one.
Get well, Dr. Z. A NFL season without your thoughts about it isn’t much of a season at all. I know what we’re missing. It’s a damn shame more sports fans don’t.
