I’ve written about LeBron James a few times over
the last few weeks in an effort to convey one point: He’s a phenomenal
talent who’s really not as bad as he’s depicted in the media.

It’s a terrible thing when you feel like you’re working against a
seemingly unstoppable machine. In this situation, the machine is
mainstream sports media, and the few I align myself with are journalists
who refuse to be lazy.

Writing and reporting isn’t only about your subject. It doesn’t
matter what beat a reporter covers. The job is to identify all the
complexities of a situation and deliver it with humanity and accuracy.
Instead, viewers and readers are provided gossip and half-truths
masquerading as analysis and inside access.

I can respect the difficulty in trying to capture all the angles, all
the time. Not everything is transparent. But I can’t respect
simplification.

Today’s media landscape is leveled terrain. People want the basics of
their news in 140 characters, a two-minute YouTube link, and a 250-word
blog post/article. But it takes a lot of audacity to not even try
explaining all the various angles of a story.

Roger Groves offered the ultimate counterpoint to all of the James
criticism in the above link. This stood out to me most (but the entire
piece is excellent):

As with every story, the media had a choice. They could elect the
character assassination or accentuate the far-more prevalent
positives.  An example of the character assassinations is the technique
of adding words LeBron did not say to reach a conclusion of what they
want to be his words, attempts to show an intent he did not express.
Repeated false attributions are a disgrace to the profession of
journalism. When James said, “For those who want me to fail, they will
have to go back to their lives with the same problems they had” is to
say nothing more than what he said. Not that he was claiming himself
superior. If anything is to be gleaned from that statement it is that
no matter how they feel about me, they have to go back to real day to
day living. He didn’t say “Get a life”. It was more like, “you already
have a life, and hating me doesn’t help.” The haters still have to get
up and go to work, and LeBron has nothing to do with it.

READ IT ALL. Your kittens, gifs, and memes will still be here when you return.