Monday, May 11, 2009

Soapbox: Finebaum Comes out of the Closet

BREAKING NEWS!! Paul Finebaum is a Bammer!

Right, I know, what's new? Any self-respecting Auburn fan who lives in the Birmingham area knows Paul Finebaum is a closet Bammer. Heck, most Alabama fans around here will admit, at the very least, that he caters to his listening audience, which is predominantly made up of Bama fans. None of this is news (as demonstrated by my ironic use above of the phrase "breaking news"; clever, huh?) and on any other day, this information would bounce off of me like it normally does.

But yesterday, I saw this piece of information. "Featuring Alabama's Anthony Grant and Paul Finebaum"? I am truly offended by this. I have come to accept the fact that the man is not totally unbiased, and that he will never really give Auburn their due, and that's fine with me. As an Auburn fan, I could care less what Finebaum thinks about the Tigers.

But this doesn't offend me as an Auburn fan. This offends me as an amateur journalist. Allow me to list the perks of being an amateur journalist, especially of the sports variety:
  1. Porr grammer and speling is been alowed.
  2. Girls dig guys with Auburn football blogs.
  3. Real research is optional, and can be replaced by Wikipedia when convenient.
  4. You can openly be a grossly biased fan of the team you cover, represent them in an official or unofficial capacity, and not be held accountable, because who cares? I'm just some idiot amateur with a blog.
And here are the drawbacks of being an amateur journalist:
  1. No pay.
  2. I may have lied about the thing with the girls.
Finebaum is cheating the system. If he claims to be a real journalist, and with a spot on Fox 6  as well as a column for the Mobile Press-Register I'm assuming he does, then he should act like one and not take sides on the biggest sports issue in the state, Auburn vs. Alabama. Until he does that, I think Fox and the Press-Register would be wise to drop him, or start paying me to publish my "unbiased opinion" for their respective organizations. I think I could do that.

My Nightly News Piece on Fox 6? You know where to reach me, Karle.

So it has now become clear that Finebaum is an out-of-the-closet Bammer. Henceforth, I shall no longer regard any Finebaum work as Journalism, and instead call it entertainment. There has always been a place where the lowest common denominator can come and fight with each other for our amusement. In the '90's it was Springer, today, it's Finebaum.

And that's what really grinds my gears. [Steps off soapbox]

NOTE: Aside from that, best of luck to both the Auburn crew of Chizik-Bo Jackson, and the Bammer team of Grant-Finebaum. As much as I hate Bammer/ disrespect Finebaum, that's a good cause, and you can't hate on that.

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