Sports for Politics’ Sake at the Washington Post [with comment by Paul]

Paul notes below the irrepressible reflexes of the Washington Post’s arts and entertainment coverage that often appears in their misnamed Style section (misnamed because its relentless politicization shows it has little style and no class). But apparently the problem extends to the Sports section as well.

I don’t often take in the Post’s sports section any more, but this morning happened to find me in Washington, DC, where I made the dreadful mistake of reading sports page columnist Sally Jenkins on last night’s Super Bowl. I was hoping for some analysis of why Cam Newton didn’t run the ball more, or some reporting on how Denver’s defensive scheme prevented that. Instead, we get this:

Somehow, the ugliness of the game matched the overall gritty atmosphere of this Super Bowl. The NFL brought a spectacle of excess to a city struggling with rampant homelessness and facing a $100 million budget shortfall. A 2015 city government survey found there were 6,686 homeless, and many of them slept or panhandled on the streets around Super Bowl City, the blocks-long exhibition party.

Levi’s Stadium was a structure with the architectural charm of a half-built bridge, and bad turf that yielded divots even in pregame warmups. It sat in an expanse of Santa Clara surrounded by Silicon Valley corporate buildings a good hour from the city, with the Golden Gate Bridge nowhere in sight.

C.S. Lewis used to suggest that people only read the sports pages because at least half the news there was true. Now you can’t even read the sports pages without the relentless snobbery of modern liberalism showing up. They just can’t help themselves. And yet newspapers continue to wring their hands about losing readers, and blame the internet.

P.S. Yes, I didn’t miss the irony of Jenkins failing to note that this “gritty” atmosphere exists in a city and region dominated by liberals. Heh.

PAUL adds: Steve is right about the sportswriters and about sports commentators in general. The opportunities for them to manifest their leftism are fewer than for those who write in “Style” type sections. But many nonetheless express it, often with more vigor and less nuance than the journalists they ape.

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