Wayne's World: Musings on the Media

by Wayne, our boy from the South

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Last week, in USA TODAY's TV sports section, there was a brief item about several current NFL players going to a TV "Boot Camp" at the NFL Network run by the sainted NFL Films (cue up symphonic warrior-type music). The seminar was to see if these players had what it took to move on to the commentary booth and/or wear the TV blazer when their playing days were over.

I'd like to see the NHL do something similar, but with a twist: have ALL players AND executives (league and team) attend a PR "Boot Camp" run by PR and media-types where they'll all learn how to be a little more media friendly. The instructors should come from both Madison Avenue and TV execs, with the latter not coming from Versus, but from other entertainment channels (E!, Spike TV, VH1) with the idea of getting all involved with the league to loosen up a bit, "let their hair down a little", stop delivering stock answers ("We have a real good organ-eye-zation"), and just get their faces out a little more. (And English lessons for those coming from Europe.)

Last Saturday, Jim McKay died. He was before your time; I wish you were able to see ABC's Wide World of Sports back when it was really good (early 60's-mid 70's). The show broadcast events no one (other than the partcipants) knew existed: Acupulco cliff-diving, demolition derby, sumo wrestling, and other stuff. But McKay (and others) made it so compelling, you couldn't turn away. (That, and there were only THREE networks then).

McKay was also ABC's lead announcer for the Olympic telecasts (ABC WAS the network of the Olympics up to Calgary in Winter '88), which pioneered a feature, first innovative, then later parodied and ridiculed: a feature called "Up Close & Personal", showcasing the athletes from other countries and their personal stories: The gymnast from Romania who was a product of the Communist system, the swimmer from Austria swimming for the memory of his brother dying of cancer, the barefoot track star from Kenya, etc. During the packaged TV obituary on The Worldwide Leader in Sports, Roone Arledge (the Godfather of what we see on sports television today) made a great comment: "You had to know who the people were, so you'd know who to root for."

I mention this because, as I've said too often in these emails, the NHL has no damn clue on how to reach the casual viewer. If pro sports had to depend on the casual fan, the NBA and NHL would've closed up shop years ago. There are way too many announcers who can X-and-O you to death (true for the NFL and NBA as well), but give you no reason to not to change the channel.

Remember that story about Georges Laraque visiting the sick boy? How come you never hear more stories like that? Why can't Versus, NBC, TSN, CBC, and the regional sports nets pool resources to interview players off the ice and tell their stories? Not only that, with more and more players coming from Europe, get on a damn plane and interview Ilya Kovalchuk, Alex Ovechkin, et al, during the off season in their native lands?

We can't give charisma transplants to people born without, but the league and broadcast partners need to do something fast if they want to capitalize on the buzz after last week's Cup final...

David Pratt Fired for Plagiarism

TV/Radio/Print personality "Big Fat" David Pratt is a divisive figure among Vancouver/BC sports fans. You either love him or, more probably, loathe the man for his blustery, opinionated views on the topic-du-jour. (He doesn't bother me too much these days)

Well, Pratt haters will be amused to hear that David Pratt has been canned from his side gig at The Province, our local mainstream birdcage liner.

The reason? A blatant rip off of a quote by American writer Rick Reilly, who is known more for being a fraud who poops his pants.

From one toilet to another, eh?

From the mouth of the lion:

The Province is ending the column written by TEAM 1040 AM sports talk-show host David Pratt after he admitted to plagiarizing some portions of a Sports Illustrated piece written by well-known writer Rick Reilly.

The column, celebrating the winding down of the long career of Hockey Night In Canada play by play man Bob Cole, contained some clear similarities to the Reilly piece about legendary U.S. college basketball coach and broadcaster Al McGuire published in the Sept. 18, 2000, edition of Sports Illustrated.

The most striking was a passage in Reilly's piece: "They say he was born 72 years ago last Thursday, but don't believe it. McGuire dropped straight out of Guys and Dolls with a martini in one hand and a basketball in the other."
Pratt wrote in Tuesday's column in The Province: "Cole was born 75 years ago, but it's more likely he dropped straight out of Guys and Dolls with a martini in one hand and a puck in the other."

Now, Pratt claims that radio guys like him rip off/borrow quotes all the time. I suppose that is true, and it's not as if we don't all borrow/use lines.

But this? Purely lazy and purely blatant plagiarism. Pratt admits that he just wanted to go home early on a Saturday afternoon, and he got caught. Ha!

You just know that in today's Internet age, such plagiarism, especially of a fairly well-known quote, is going to be caught by somebody.

As a blogger and *cough*writer*cough*, I know better and liberally utilize quoting and block quoting in my post. How hard would it have been for Pratt to add a simple "As Rick Reilly might say" before his line? That would acknowledge the source, and he'd still have a job.

Now, Pratt's written content was pretty dull and not very intelligent. It's one thing for a blogger on a free-to-visit site, like me, to write crap, but it is another for a guy like Pratt to be paid by a newspaper, a product consumers PAY for, to write such drivel on a regular basis. Then again, The Province and the CanWest Empire is hardly known for its quality.

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As an aside, I once committed by own act of plagiarism by posting material written by Rich "The American Hockey Fan", and should have been more vigilant in my posting.

A friend of mine had sent me a very humourous take-off on those Nigerian SPAM mails we receive all too often. I thought it was my friend who had written it, and so I posted it on my site. I didn't realize that Ritch had posted that material, which he wrote, the day before.

Lesson: I should have asked my friend if he wrote the material. He was known for funny stuff, so I just 'assumed'.

When you ASSUME, you make an ASS out of U and ME

*grooooan*

Dater Does Not Dig Dion

by Jes

Most MSM mediots are rather droll and uninspired. Years of covering the same team and beating the same drum seem to suck the life out of most writers, leaving them bitter husks that create stupid trade rumours out of thin air (*cough* Tony Gallagher *cough*), and always whine about how their team/players aren't good enough after last night's 3-2 loss in OT.

It doesn’t help that the papers practice a big load of self-censorship, and don't allow much in the way of true personality to ever be expressed. We can't risk pissing off those lucrative advertisers, or the teams themselves, can we?

Well, author Adrian "The Hater" Dater is one of the few MSM writers that allows his emotions to get the better of him, and it makes for great reading. It helps that The Denver Post allows him this avenue for expressing himself without a whole lot of interference.

Take this recent blog about a Flames/Avs tilt in which Dater rips into Phaneuf.

So here is Dion Phaneuf tonight, laying one big hit from behind after another on Peter Forsberg, and there goes Forsberg to the penalty box for a little tap on some guy’s glove a few minutes later. Same old NHL, where the retaliator is penalized.

Phaneuf is a bit of a Bill Laimbeer on skates, by the way. And some day he’s going to get his, and it’s not going to be pretty for him. He’s going to hit one backside of a player too many, and somebody is going to rip that shield off his face and hand him his teeth. (And yes, he’s an effective player, though, because he DOES get people off their games mentally. And, yes, if I was a coach and he played on my team, I’d probably love him. But not always. You can argue he cost his team a game, with a foolish interference penalty - and blatantly cross-checking Paul Stastny from behind, not long after the Avs scored on his first penalty, didn’t help the Flames’ cause, either).

We’ll see if the Avs have any hair on their chests the rest of the night or not. I said it once and I’ll say it again - you gotta smack the bully in the mouth.

See, this is the kind of stuff the fans want to read. The Laimbeer comparison is quite apt, and Dater expresses many of the same thoughts most non-Flames fans have had for some time. Dater's blog posts show a good range of emotions, and make for far more interesting reading than you usually get from the stodgy MSM.

Other MSM publications should take note of how many comments and referring links Dater's blog has generated, and get a clue.