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July 1, 2009
KLOSTERMAN/SIMMONS re: TWITTER
On his latest podcast, The Sports Guy and Chuck Klosterman had a lively, if rambling debate over the ethics and relative merits of Twitter. I have a twitter page which I rarely update, but these two (particularly Klosterman) bring up some interesting questions about the relationship between a journalist and his/her audience.
The Sports Guy's podcast is probably number one on my podcast list; it's pretty much the only one I'm dedicated to listening to. I also really enjoy the AV Talk podcast, which is relatively new and only recently available on ITunes. Other than that, I occasionally listen to the NBA Today and PTI podcasts. That's about it. Any other suggestions? I used to do Filmspotting but stopped for various reasons . . .
That said, sometimes the SG is maddening - I understand that part of his appeal is that he blends pop culture and sports, but sometimes I think he's not the jack of all trades he's made out to be. His best interviews are with Klosterman, whom he's done three long podcasts with. His worst was with Mark Cuban, which was fawning and seemed to exist only so Cuban could pimp his products.
I don't know how I feel about PTI. Its "5 Good Minutes" is, ironically, the worst part of the show, particularly when they interview athletes. Typical interviews involve questions similar to Principal Skinner's question to Mr. Burns: "What's more important? Hard work or sticktuitiveness?" When are we going to realize that 99.5% of sports professionals are extremely uninteresting in interviews and cover their ass to an absurd degree. Like Blake Griffin is really going to tell ESPN that he doesn't want to play for the Clippers, or Houston's GM is really going to say that he wishes he could unload Tracy McGrady. It was the worst thing about Jim Rome and its the worst thing here.
Recently I've been reading (very slowly) an interesting book called NIXONLAND, which brings me back to the Frost/Nixon interviews, recently memorialized (poorly) in Ron Howard's movie. That interview was relevant because Frost was putting Nixon on trial, not asking him inane questions that could be answered in sound-bites. As even the movie points out, the key to Frost's strategy was not to allow Nixon to retreat to anecdotes, and to ask questions that could be answered. Those, I suppose, are the only interviews I'm interested in.
You can get part one of the Klosterman/Simmons Podcast here and part two here
If those don't work go to his twitter page or to his page on ESPN.
| By Andytown | 4:37 PM
Comments
I always enjoy the Klosterman interviews too. As CK himself says, people rarely challenge Simmons's populist self-positioning. I also found it very interesting that, in the podcast with LeBatard, Simmons said he'll be doing PTI some time this summer, which would also seem a challenge to his populist stance, given that almost daily it seems PTI (well, perhaps mostly Wilbon) gets on its high horse and lays the "SMACKDOWN" on somebody or something. I can imagine Simmons using "knucklehead" too, but Wilbon usually claims only to speak for himself...
I also found it soothing to hear a CK talk about the tribulations of writing. Really helpful.
Posted by: Nate at July 7, 2009 11:52 AM