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"Would we love to run her? Yes. Could she win? We think so."--Jess Jackson, co-owner of Preakness winner Rachel Alexandra.
"Why so unconventional? Why did we choose A.J.?"--Josh Byrnes, Arizona Diamondbacks general manager, addressing the media in regard to his hiring of manager A.J. Hinch.
"Will I offer a suggestion every now and then? Sure."--A.J. Hinch, on the subject of telling his catchers what pitch to call.
Are we tired of sports figures doing self-interviews? Yes. Do we wish that they would be forced to answer a pointed question with a straight-forward declarative sentence? Very much so. Do we dislike the way they insist on asking their own rhetorical questions in order to explain or exonerate themselves? We do indeed. Reporters, give us, not your subjects, a break. Don't let them get away with this ruse. Maintain control of the interview. Make them answer your questions, not their own. Never incorporate their self-serving rhetoric into your stories.
Do we also note that reporters and moderators today are unquestioningly accepting tautologies and verbatim repetition and passing them on to us as worthy comment or argument? All too often.
"When we've played well, we've played pretty good."--Kansas basketball coach Bill Self.
"Dirk is Dirk."--Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban on all-star forward Nowitski.
"Big players make big plays in big games."--ESPN basketball analyst Digger Phelps.
"Champions win championship games."--fellow analyst Dick Vitale.
"You give good shooters good shots and they'll knock 'em down."--TNT analyst Doug Collins.
"That's just Manny being Manny."--any ESPN SportsCenter host.
"It is what it is."--Mark Jackson, TNT analyst.
"It's a physical game. I mean, it's a physical game."--Jackson.
"He can play. I mean, he can play."--Reggie Miller, TNT analyst.
Enough of this slipshod commentary. Hosts and lead announcers, demand analysis and description;don't put up with tautology and repetition. It's weak reporting, is what it is. Don't allow it. I mean, just don't allow it.
And do we wince at the camouflage statement, certainly not limited to sports figures, wherein the interviewer permits the interviewee to go unchallenged when he says one thing but means its opposite? Yes, we do. Interviewers, press your subject to admit the underlying truth, as in the following:
"Not to take anything away from my opponent but I...."
("You can take everything away from my opponent. I beat myself.")
"I know everybody is disappointed. So am I. I'm disappointed I put myself in this situation."
("I'm not sorry that I did it. I'm sorry that I got caught.")
"The Silver Star paperwork produced confusion at a tragic time. I'm very sorry for that."
("We thought that we could get away with covering up the incident. Sorry that didn't work.")
"I don't want to tell you what to do, but...."
("I do want to tell you what to do.")
"He and I have a communication problem."
("He's not agreeing with me.")
"He doesn't have good people skills."
("He disagrees with me.")
"He's an activist judge."
("I don't agree with his interpretation of the Constitution.")
"Don't try to be all things to all people."
("Just do what I want you to do, not what they want you to do.")
"He has a set of principles he's unwilling to sacrifice for the sake of popularity."
("He's inflexible and unreasonable.")
"I'm sorry, but I believe that...."
("I'm not sorry, and you're wrong.")
"I'm not saying I'm tougher or stronger than anybody, but I've been known to do some amazing things sometimes."
("I am tougher and stronger than anybody.")
"The injury bothered me in practice. The easy part was playing the games on Sundays."
("They shot me so full of painkillers for the game that I couldn't feel a thing.")
"We didn't torture political prisoners--we used enhanced interrogation methods."
("Of course we tortured them, and we think that's what has kept us safe.")
"We gave our prisoners an extraordinary rendition."
("You thought maybe we played them Jimi Hendrix's version of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' or Duke Ellington's Newport Jazz Festival version of 'Diminuendo in Blue and Crescendo in Blue'? No way. We sent them to overseas prisons that have torture chambers.")
Finally, are we frustrated by Moebius statements (ones that seem to make sense at first but on further reflection do not)? Definitely. Consider:
"Consistency in basketball officiating is what's important. If there's a terrible call on our end, there's got to be a terrible call on the other end, and vice versa."
(How's that again? Does one terrible call demand another? Should a referee ever deliberately make a terrible call? That's taking the eye-for-an-eye principle to an unacceptable extreme.)
"I was trying to be too aggressive."
(No, you weren't trying to be too agressive--you were trying too hard to be aggressive.)
"The urge to cheat or take shortcuts has become the hallmark of our time, so players take steroids."
(It's not the urge to cheat that leads to steroid usage, it's the urge to succeed that drives players to cheat. Cheating is a means, not an end.)
"Democracy works best when not too many people get involved."
(How is it democracy if not many people are involved?)
"The average person is very special."
(Sure. And the average person is above-average, too.)
"We went through the toughest road anybody had to hoe to get here."
(If the road was made of asphalt or concrete, it was indeed tough to hoe. But what you did, you old backyard gardener, you, was hoe a tough row.)
Editors and reporters, insist on linguistic responsibility. Nothing is too good for those in the media who don't tolerate ambiguity, and nothing is too good for those who do.
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