{"channel":"sports","content":"Trying to talk about the problems with the media in politics tend to degrade to partisan mud-slinging.\n\nHowever, in the (often distressingly) similar world of Sports coverage, the same phenomenon occurs.\n\n<red> how else does one explain how Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith still have jobs?\n\nEverybody knows their takes are bad.  They are obnoxious and annoying.  They are frequently wrong.\n\nYet ESPN keeps promoting them, year after year after year.  Why?\n\n<xantham> probably for the ratings ...\n\n<yellow> it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. . . but for\u00a0Wales?\n\nThe question is: is there some hidden societal good that comes from ESPN jamming some of the worst talking-heads on the planet into every sitting-room in America?\n\nOr are they just nihilistic incompetents, running society into the ground because a spreadsheet says that they might see a 6% drop in revenue if they stopped being awful?","created_at":"2023-09-24T02:17:34","id":425,"llm_annotations":{},"parent_id":null,"processed_content":"<p>Trying to talk about the problems with the media in politics tend to degrade to partisan mud-slinging.</p>\n<p>However, in the (often distressingly) similar world of Sports coverage, the same phenomenon occurs.</p>\n<p><span class=\"colorblock color-red\">\n    <span class=\"sigil\">\ud83d\udca1</span>\n    <span class=\"colortext-content\"> how else does one explain how Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith still have jobs?</span>\n  </span></p>\n<p>Everybody knows their takes are bad.  They are obnoxious and annoying.  They are frequently wrong.</p>\n<p>Yet ESPN keeps promoting them, year after year after year.  Why?</p>\n<p><span class=\"colorblock color-xantham\">\n    <span class=\"sigil\">\ud83d\udd25</span>\n    <span class=\"colortext-content\"> probably for the ratings ...</span>\n  </span></p>\n<p><span class=\"colorblock color-yellow\">\n    <span class=\"sigil\">\ud83d\udcac</span>\n    <span class=\"colortext-content\"> it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. . . but for\u00a0Wales?</span>\n  </span></p>\n<p>The question is: is there some hidden societal good that comes from ESPN jamming some of the worst talking-heads on the planet into every sitting-room in America?</p>\n<p>Or are they just nihilistic incompetents, running society into the ground because a spreadsheet says that they might see a 6% drop in revenue if they stopped being awful?</p>","quotes":[{"text":"it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. . . but for\u00a0Wales?","type":"historical"}],"subject":"the two-minute hate"}