“I always tell young broadcasters, ‘You want to matter? Then get hate mail.’ If you get hate mail, it means you’re cutting through. It means you’re pissing people off. It means you sound different. So I’ve always had my own style, which is brutal honesty. I’ve never spent too much time worrying about hurt feelings.”
-- Colin Cowherd, explaining his theory behind becoming a sports media God.
That ain’t how Vin Scully did it. But even if young sportscasters don’t aspire to Scullian heights, the least they can do, I think, is to approach issues in a reasonable matter and try their best to explain them to and discuss them fans in a manner that it both entertaining and enlightening.
But maybe that’s crazy talk. Maybe you’re better off taking positions that are devoid of thought and which are calculated simply to piss people off. There’s good ratings in that stuff.
For my part I always come back to my favorite Kurt Vonnegut quote: “We are who we pretend to be. So be careful what you pretend to be.”