In an interesting shakeup, the New York Daily News has decided to let it's top sports columnist, Mike Lupica, start writing about politics.
In yesterday's edition, Lupica weighed in on the failure of prominent Democrats -- particularly presidential front runners Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton -- to take a firm stance against the war in Iraq.
It's a well-written column and is just one more example of someone making the jump from covering sports to hard news. Probably the most influential person to jump from one desk to the other was former ABC executive Roone Arledge, who went from creating Wide World of Sports and Monday Night Football to crafting Nightline and 20/20. More recently Keith Olberman went from hosting Sports Center to the fastest growing show on cable news, Countdown with Keith Olberman.
As someone who has worked in a newsroom, I'm not surprised that former sports journalists have so much success in the world of news. Covering sports forces you to find interesting stories in a world that isn't that important. Imagine how much easier it is to cover something that really matters.
Also, covering sports forces you to simplify every situation into winning and losing. How does a trade affect a team's chance of winning? Will that injury make the team better or worse?
People who cover politics like to think it requires a very particular set of skills and knowledge. The constant success of people making the jump from sports to news shows that, in reality, it's no tougher than covering a basketball game or tennis match.
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Those in sports media are burdened by the thought that what they do isn't nearly as important as regular news people. The chance to creep into the news area is a life-time dream for some. You mention Roone Arledge--his guy, Howard Cosell was preoccupied by the idea that he should've been in politics or at least news where he felt he could've done more good.
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