If you’re an Alabama alum, or a fan of its football program, you may find yourself wondering today just what type of bug crawled up Birmingham News sports columnist Kevin Scarbinsky’s butt. If I had to guess, I’d put my money on something like those nasty little things Khan put in Chekov’s space helmet in the second Star Trek movie. Whatever it is that has Scarbinsky’s panties in a twist, it looks like it’s going to require major surgery to correct the condition.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, of course. Columnists like Scarbinsky make their living spewing forth their musings on sports, society, politics or whatever their supposed area of expertise is. As a professional journalist myself, trust me when I tell you, newspapers and other magazines are definitely trying to get a rise out of their readers when they publish a controversial article or opinion column. The papers defend this practice in many ways; they’ll claim they’re merely presenting opposing views, maintaining impartiality or creating a dialogue/debate with the readers. But no matter the reasoning, the desired outcome is always the same: increase sales/circulation or create an uproar that puts the spotlight on your publication.
So, kudos to Mr. Scarbinsky. He’s certainly earned his paycheck this month if his marching orders are, in fact, to generate outrage and controversy.
Still, after reading his August 15 column a couple of times, I couldn’t help but feel this was an especially vicious attack on the hometown team and its football coach. The article clearly focused on Division I college football, yet Scarbinsky is ranting and raving about Coach K and the Duke basketball program and Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots.
Either Scarbinsky isn’t as well-versed in American sporting intuitions as his editors and publishers have been led to believe, or there’s something else going on. And given the virulence of his attacks on Forbes, I tend to believe it’s the latter.
I think what we’re really looking at here is a case of a badly damaged ego.
Writers are an egomaniacal lot. And they certainly don’t like other writers coming in and treading on their turf. And they damn sure don’t like big, ultra-famous and highly respected publications – like, say, oh, Forbes – coming in and tromping on their beat.
In Scarbinsky’s world, this is an outrage. Deep down inside, Scarbinsky is thinking, I should be writing for Forbes instead of the bleeping Birmingham News! But instead, he’s forced to suffer as Forbes sends down a complete jackass named Monte Burke*, to cover a story for national publication, that – quite frankly – it never occurred to Mr. Sports Columnist to write himself. Worse, that elitist bastard went to Paul Finebaum for a local journalist’s angle on the story, and not Scarbinsky himself!
No, sir. You don’t come diddy-bopping into Mr. Scarbinsky’s world acting like that and expect to get off scott free. There was bound to be hell to pay, and the August 15th column is exactly that.
It’s not about Alabama football. It’s not even about Coach Nick Saban, and it’s certainly not about Duke basketball or the New England-freakin-Patriots.
It’s about Forbes magazine. More precisely, it’s about Forbes magazine and the crappy job they did (in Scarbinsky’s eyes) in covering Alabama football.
They don’t know what the hell they’re talking about, Scarbinsky is telling us. Dorky Monte Burke and Forbes magazine fell sway to Mal Moore and Nick Saban’s charm and allowed themselves to be dazzled by the insidious Alabama Sports Information Department.
If only they’d come to him – to Kevin Scarbinsky – well… He’d have shown the path to journalist glory. He’d have told them where to find the truth. He’d have shown them why his name ought to be on the masthead of Forbes magazine complete with a corner office overlooking Madison Avenue in Manhattan.
But they didn’t come to him. And so, they drew his ire.
* I certainly don’t know Monte Burke and I personally don’t consider him to be a jackass… Rather the contrary. After reading his Forbes article, I’d say he did one hell of a job of capturing the mood of the Alabama nation and the business motives behind the hiring of Nick Saban. And if, as I’ve reliably told by journalists close to the UA football program, he gathered the information for that story in only two days in Tuscaloosa, then I’d have to say Mr. Burke is a pretty damn good journalists given the depth with which he covered his subject matter.