NOTE: I’m starting a new column here called “Curmudgeon Monday.” It’s my one chance each week to gripe about something that bugs me.
“Have you seen my ex lately?” writer Lisa Best asked as the lead sentence to an article about Canadian bodybuilder Todd Payette. Payette has been invited to represent his country in the Mr. Universe contest in London this coming October.
Ms. Best proceeded to explain why she and Payette were no longer married before really getting into the meat (If you’ll excuse the expression) of the matter in paragraph three. From there, most of the article is devoted to describing how Payette got hooked on his sport, how he was invited to compete in the Olympics of bodybuilding, and how Jack LaLanne, an early television guru on fitness, influenced him.
But the last paragraph turns personal again, with Ms. Best describing Payette’s current fiancйe as one who “loves egg whites and cottage cheese and supports him in his Speedos,” things the author has already alluded at the front end as being some of the reasons their marriage failed.
The thing is Best’s injecting her personal relationship into the article distracts the attention from Payette and his endeavors. From the first sentence, the reader wonders if writer and subject are on cordial speaking terms, how long ago they divorced, etc. It’s a subtle mental distraction, and I give Best the benefit of the doubt that it was intentional. Nevertheless, the article would have stood better on its own merit, had it begun with paragraph three and ended without any reference to a fiancйe.
I’m not picking on Best in particular, but I am using this article as an example of journalists of all stripes who interview a particular person or describe a particular event and then inject some self-serving comment about their experience in the matter. Another cloying example occurred during last week’s Bears-Colts football game, where the three announcers spent most of the time discussing their opinion of football player Michael Vick’s recent guilty plea for participating in illegal dog fighting, rather than calling the game at hand.
I don’t want to know about a writer’s personal relationship or an announcer’s opinion unless it is truly relevant to the topic. Knowing that Best was once married to Payette or that the three announcers — whose names I never caught — thought Vick would get the longest sentence of those who pleaded guilty didn’t enhance my knowledge of either bodybuilding or football. And it really didn’t say much for the journalists involved either.
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