THE DEMISE OF SPORTS REPORTING DOESN’T MEAN ALL OF US ARE GOING AWAY

The NFL’s insider world has lost Chris Mortensen and Peter King, but in the end, it’s more important to the media industry that our voices remain independent and detached from a league’s influences

     We operate on a higher plane as independent thinkers. I write for your eyeballs without interference from editors and publishers who have their own agendas. This is why news organizations are dying in America and why my particular profession — sports media — eventually will be overtaken by artificial intelligence.

     Or is that happening already? In Chicago, I was mailed a package — with photos — that tried to show a potent local sports personality was involved in a double life. I brought it to a managing editor, knowing my sports editor wouldn’t budge. I wanted city side to investigate the story, and I’d help the coverage. The no-show response, by a boss not far from retirement: “What is our purpose?”

     Oh, the truth.

     Also in Chicago, I was told by a radio programmer, Len Weiner, to stop criticizing the White Sox and Bulls because the owner of the franchises, Jerry Reinsdorf, was delivering those orders. I refused and was fired at 8 a.m. the day after Christmas, even though my ratings torched the other sports station. A friend asked why I didn’t surrender to the smash technique.

     Oh, the truth.

     Leagues run by billionaires can rig their own stories. Their tokens will deliver the lies. When Peter King retired last month from his football pilgrimage, he expressed concern to Front Office Sports about how the NFL will blur powerful stories. “One,” he said, “is the continued trouble over head trauma.”

     The other: “I believe that 10 years from now, we’re going to have a huge number of people in this country who are hopelessly addicted to sports gambling. And part of the reason is that they’re being told every five minutes on every NFL telecast, bet, bet, bet, bet, and then bet some more.”

     Head trauma kills. So does overextended gambling. Neither story is covered as such, and at ESPN, we have been told to bet, bet, bet, bet, and then bet some more. The network is in a massive business with the NFL, and soon enough, what enters your headspace will be controlled by outlets that don’t have the money and gumption to challenge colossuses. You will be blitzed by ESPN, Fox, NBC, CBS and various streamers. They will be operated by commissioners who oversee editors.

     The league’s insider world has lost King and Chris Mortensen, who died Sunday at 72. If King was a trooper who fought the law, as much as it would allow, Mortensen was a good man who ultimately fell into the NFL’s traps. A lengthy ESPN obituary includes deep eulogies from commissioner Roger Goodell and a number of team owners, including Jerry Jones, who said, “Chris will forever be part of the NFL family. Loved by so many, he was a brilliant voice for the game and as passionate and talented as there has ever been. He will be deeply missed and we're grateful for the special memories and legacy Chris leaves us.”

     If we are self-governing reporters, we should not be “loved” by so many people we’re covering. That makes us part of the machine. Mortensen excelled at breaking stories because the league wanted him to be great. Did that mean he should take me down one day and ask why I opined Mike Singletary, the Bears linebacking legend, wouldn’t be a good NFL head coach? He was not a good head coach. Mortensen, a friend of Singletary, let me have it anyway.

     We are covering what soon will be a trillion-dollar industry, an ample part of the American economy and the unquestioned entertainment leader. For news media to survive, we must be detached from the leagues and not follow their leads. I left the Sun-Times after 17 years and was on my way out of ESPN after eight years.

     And to this day, I’m proud of my experiences, if not the b.s. A sports owner won’t praise me when I die. Some people at those media companies will be happy I’m dead.

     But in the end — today — I have your eyeballs. I write for you on Substack and don’t write for the usage of others. That means more to me than a daily newspaper circulation of 400,000 and 900,000 daily TV viewers, the numbers as they once were and never will be again. News media are dying, but some of us are going nowhere.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.