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Hi People:
As Football season is now in full swing here in the USA, I am anchoring College Football coverage on radio every Saturday as well as managing a full time University schedule. The College Football gig involves a lot of travel, for example this past weekend I was two time zones away at a stadium that can hold 61,000, this week, I will be in a comfy studio!
I have written an article on Sports Announcing for a college class and although it is intended for an American audience, I am sure you can all draw paralells with UK broadcasters, past and present. I wondered what your thoughts would be (by the way, part of it is a rewrite from an earlier post on here by me):
Essay One: Do my studies match my career choice?
As I discussed in class, I have had problems answering the first two journals and this essay proposition. After careful thought, I still draw the conclusion I know what skills I need to practice to follow the career I desire, and because I already have some experience in the field I wish to enter (broadcasting) I found little of note in our textbook.
When challenged to consider why I switched majors from Communications to English, I was able to look at myself in a slightly different light and it is “Being good and different” which forms the text for this essay.
I wish to be a broadcaster. And I am not going to end up as the next Trevor Macdonald or Jim McKay by limiting the power of my vocabulary. A great command of the English language will make me stand out in a field filled with talking heads and ex-jocks who speak in sound bites and cliché.
Turn on any news or sport network and by and large the reporters look, sound and frequently act alike. I am not talking about going on camera as a clown and guffawing my way through terror attacks or the final of the Olympic 400 meters, but I am saying there is a better way of announcing, especially in the realm of sports broadcasting, which has been all but abandoned in America in favor of what the late Howard Cosell called the “jockocracy” of American sports broadcasting.
What transpired would turn Cosell in his grave. Sports presenting and analysis has become tabloid journalism punctuated by ex-athletes who clearly do not always make the best journalists. However, the wheel will turn full circle and I believe there will be a time in the future when serious sports reporting and journalism, not driven by platitudes and sensationalism will once again be required in mainstream television and radio.
I have become something of a mentor to the would-be announcers I have met at University and am frequently asked online by other would-be announcers for tips and advice. Often they are questions which our book covered like: “How do you get into this field?” or “How do you prepare your research?” and of course “What is the pay like?”
When I write back or talk to these (usually teenage) people, I emphasize the importance of being able to describe a situation using correct and concise English. I try to advise them to become well read and develop a passion for words and their usage. You do not have to become a walking thesaurus but you do need the ability to pull the right word out of the hat, especially when under pressure.
For example, I have always loved Horse Racing, but at the age of thirty-two, if I am to become a full time Race Announcer upon leaving University, it will be my experience of using English in other dramatic forms and contexts that will form the backbone of my ability as a broadcaster. This, I believe will help me to stand out in a very competitive market.
As you may have guessed, this generation of American Sports Broadcasters does not impress me, although they have their entertaining moments. I seriously think many of them would lack the ability to put any kind of non sporting event into a global context – many of them struggle with that basic concept, truly embracing the Superbowl winners as “World Champions” of a sport which barely creates a blip on the sporting radar outside of North America.Sports anchoring should not be rooted in how well you can read the list of sponsors, pontificate about Tiger Woods as the equivalent of the second coming of Christ and how proficient one can be at speaking in jargon filled jingoism. Similarly, sports analysis, should not be punctuated by “personalities” whose lack of ability to concisely explain what is going on is overcome by them saying things such as “Boom,” “Slam-a-roonie” or making excruciating puns about the names of the participants.
If a major news event was to occur at a sporting event, who would best be able to cover it…Jim McKay (if he were still alive and active in the business) or Chris Berman? There are a few exceptions, Al Michaels proved his journalistic mettle outside the sports arena at the San Francisco earthquake, and I feel Brent Musberger would be ok as well. But they are all older guys nearing the end of their active careers.
Maybe I will be the victim of my own advice as I do not claim to be the greatest broadcaster in the world, but I do feel I am doing the industry a service by encouraging would be announcers to look beyond the announcing booth of their favorite sports and become part of the world of words and literature that surrounds them. They can then return to the booth, wiser and one day, it may pay off. One day I will be able to use the skills I learned through ha study of an English language and maybe inspire somebody and follow in the footsteps of great wordsmiths and not over-hyped personalities. The same comparison could also apply to me in changing from a Communications Major to an English Major.
A final thought: Jim McKay passed on this past summer. I was part of a small tribute to him shown in the Minnesota area. Nearly fifty years of sports broadcasting, yet his most famous words referred to a non sporting incident which will haunt many people forever and illustrates why every would be sports reporter needs to know more than how to announce a sport:
“When I was a kid, my father used to say out greatest hopes and our worse fears are seldom realized. Our worse fears have been realized tonight. They’ve now said there were eleven hostages. Two were killed in their rooms, this mor…yesterday morning. Nine were killed at the airport tonight. They’re all gone.”
Hi Craig,
It’s a very well written piece and an enjoyable read.
What I would say is that it comes across as a touch self congratulatory but then again it’s aimed at the U.S audience so will no doubt go down well.
Good luck.
Lee
P.S If you haven’t already, I’d also post this in the General Sports forum.
I think sports journalism should be beautifully written; eg Richard Baerlain, Hugh MacIlvaney, John Oaksey et al..the thing that annoys me more than anything is when presenters can’t pronounce the names of the horses..ok some of the Irish names can be a bit tricky, but there’s no excuse for not pronouncing the French ones properly [Angus Loughran on the BBC is the worst].
Agree with moehat.
Richard Pitman was awful too. I remember he always pronounced Suny Bay, ‘Soony Bay’.
Ive always believed that to be in Sports Journalism wether it be on TV,Radio or Writing you have to be passionate and also to believe in what you think is write yet also respect someone elses opinion in the subject.
Far too many SJ have inflated egos and think that it is them rarther than the product that comes first.
For example over here we have Radio DJs like Chris Moyles who believe that it is them and not the music that comes first unlike Johnnie Walker or the much missed John Peel.
Regarding speech and vocabulary i think that America is to blame for this ridiculous way in which words are shortend to sound "cool" and "trendy" for example "hood" instead of "neighbourhood", You only have to see an episdoe of Nick Cannons Wild n Out to see this stupid use of language.
Many Americans are lazy with language.
Though the example you give comes from Ebonics. I have to grade English 101 papers and I can nearly always tell when the student is black, even without the "strange" names they are given here such as: Laquinsha, Latrina, LeGrange, Jamal, Prince, Africia, Tuwanda, Clamidya, etc.
Every paper is usually full of ebonics, and basic sentence construction was clearly not very high on the list of priorities "in du hood, in ma crib, gnomesayin?"
Of course, redneck English is in itself a sight to behold…
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