University of Connecticut OpenCommons@UConn Honors Scholar Theses Honors Scholar Program Spring 5-10-2009 The weetS Script: A Critical Analysis of American Sportswriting Jonathan Schreiber university of connect,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://opencommons.uconn.edu/srhonors_theses Part of the American Popular Culture Commons, Journalism Studies Commons, Mass Communication Commons, and the Other English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Schreiber, Jonathan, "The wS eet Script: A Critical Analysis of American Sportswriting" (2009). Honors Scholar Theses. 78. https://opencommons.uconn.edu/srhonors_theses/78 The Sweet Script: A Critical Analysis of American Sportswriting Jonny Schreiber Senior Honors Thesis Professor Hufstader May 1, 2009 Sportswriting often explores controversy to capitalize on the drama and give the author a forum for moral expression. Yet the genre itself exists at the center of debate. For some, “sportswriting by journalists in the United States is abysmally low,” rife with “the worst tendencies of academic writing – tortured syntax, cant diction, passive voice, grammatical conjunctivitis . hedging, indirection, obfuscation . a bedraggled stock of clichés” claims George Core in an issue of The American Scholar (Core 282). Numerous others share his opinion if not his passion that “there is little place in sportswriting for the academic mind” (Core 286). Despite the sports section “[accounting] for more than 20 percent of editorial content in metropolitan daily newspapers – more than any other category of news” (Anderson 355-356), its practitioners are accused as cheerleaders and hero-worshippers. They face “more lenient standards than reporters on other beats” (Anderson 356) since general fandom forgives their myriad of sins out of blithe ignorance (academics draw a clear line; PhDs over here, simpleton chest-painting-beer-swigging-hooligans over there) or fervor (fans want to read articles root, root, rooting for the home team).