[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' date=\'Sep 8 2003, 08:23 AM\']
Sorry, but I think ESPN's use of the sports equivalent of Variety-speak is what makes their shows unwatchable.
And once again I'm amazed at how you self-styled experts know everything that's wrong with ESPN too.
[/quote]
Good point, and I hope that what I have to add doesn't come across as a
rant.
I should probably add that I'm likely 'off the charts', as it were, when it comes to what bothers me when it comes to news. (And everything else, for that matter. I actually was called by a pollster once, who sounded completely nonplussed when I told him I'm a Libertarian. :-) It's reached the point where pretty much my only sources of news are 'print' (including the web-sites of major news outlets) and the international broadcasters on short-wave (BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, Radio Nederlands, and the like). I gave up on local TV news (except for the weather and sometimes sports) a year and a half ago when the local anchorette began a story on ethnic rioting in India between Muslims and Hindus by saying \"15 children died in India today\", in a tone of voice that you wouldn't hear if only adults had died.
As for ESPN, I've found Chris Berman's nicknames irritating since I was in college -- and that was a decade ago. (Ditto for Dick Vitale's basketball coverage.) And the people on ESPNews all sound to me like they're trying not to be the reporter, but to be the story by trying to be the play-by-play announcer and using silly jargon I've never heard elsewhere.
This is probably the sort of style that brings in the desired demographics, but
for me, it grates against my ears like fingernails on a chalkboard. If I want to get a score from the ESPNews ticker, I'll either flip back and forth vigorously between ESPNews and another channel, or hit the mute button.
