The demise of expertise

Once upon a time I thought "Anyone could do this."

OK, no. No, I didn't.

That's because, like every human being, I didn't want to think that what I did for a living for 38 years -- in my case, sportswriting -- was something you could train a three-toed sloth to do well. Was something that required no expertise,  no training, no special knack for producing quality under the pressure of sometimes absurd deadlines.

I liked to think not just anyone could crank out 20 column inches that actually had proper noun-verb agreement and didn't read like it was written in crayon. Call me arrogant or presumptuous or nose-in-the-air elitist, but I actually believed my job required a modicum of -- what do you call it? -- talent.

Imagine my surprise when Our Only Available Impeached President showed up and introduced the Age of Anybody Can Do This to America. And then filled his administration with hacks and toadies  whose only qualifications were A) donating a pile of money to OOAIP's campaign, or B) being particularly adept at smooching His Mightiness' hindparts.

Also, there was a three-toed sloth or two in there. (Lookin' at you, Stephen Miller.)

In such an environment, and knowing how hedge-fund vandals were part-stripping local American media these days, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised by what happened in Kentucky this week.

What happened was, four small papers in the central part of the state -- the Advocate-Messenger, Jessamine Journal, Interior Journal and Winchester Sun -- eliminated their sports departments. This amounted to letting one person go at each paper, because at each paper one person was responsible for reporting, editing, photography and section design. The savings must have been enormous.

(Brief pause for the sarcasm to stop dripping.)

As someone who, like a lot of my contemporaries, cut our newsroom teeth as one-or-two-man bands, I feel the pain. I got my start at the Anderson (In.) Daily Bulletin as the junior half of a two-man partnership with Mike Chappell, who went on to become one of the deans of NFL beat writers and who taught me everything I know about doing the job right. As such, we did everything but the photography part  -- where we were in the excellent hands of veteran shooter John Cleary, among others.  We covered the games, wrote the stories, then came in at 6 a.m. to edit and lay out the pages.

It was hectic, sleep-deprived and glorious. And something we presumed was both a profession and a public service.

Silly us.

Silly us, because the parent company/blood-sucking leech that owns the four papers, Boone Newspapers, Inc., has decided, like OOAIP, that professional expertise is unnecessary. And so one of the papers is already running advertisements calling for "citizen submissions."

I can't tell you how badly those two words make my head hurt. And my heart.

Yes, that's right, folks, the sports section will now be in the hands of "citizen-journalists." Who needs professionals when John Q. Parent from five rows up in the bleachers can tell you everything that happened at the big Pork Rind High basketball game last night? Especially the three minutes played by John Q.'s offspring, JimBob, during which he hit his first 3-pointer of the year?

Look! Here's a cellphone photo of that glorious moment!

Yeah, it's a trifle blurry. But, hey, what's quality but just an unnecessary expense? Anybody can take a picture, right?

I'm sorry. I am not usually prone to such bitterness. But it tends to happen when a bunch of soulless  corporate lizards tells you, in so many words, that the profession to which you devoted the majority of your working life was a waste of time. That no one will miss the quality you tried to bring to it.

To hell with 'em. To hell with 'em all.