Matt Snider
In the readings for the week, one
of the most historic events in sports history (the desegregation of baseball)
is discussed. More specifically, the articles covered the story of the first
black athlete, Jackie Robinson, to cross the color line and play professionally.
There were a few points raised by
the articles that I thought were particularly interesting. To start with, in
the Lamb article, he talks about how the black writers that were helping Jackie
took a rather subjective view to the whole issue as opposed to the traditional
objective view when covering a story in Journalism. I found it interesting as
we, as journalists, are often asked to take as objective of a stance as we can
to not let any of our bias come through in our writing. This wasn’t the case
with Wendell Smith and the others following Jackie Robinson at the time, but
was it necessarily wrong?
In this situation, with
mainstream/white media downplaying such an obviously pivotal role in sports and
American history, I feel as though a little objectivity is warranted to truly
convey the monumental nature of the occasion. By being objective it allows the
writer to truly put his emotions and feelings into the piece and criticize the
wrongful acts perpetrated against black athletes and media at the time.
This leads into the biggest and
most noted point in the Lamb article which was the white mainstream media
downplaying all of the significant events that happened during this time
period. As Lamb described it in his article,
most newspapers wrote stories that adhered to their readers’ views of
either not condoning the integration of
black athletes in baseball, completely ignoring the issue altogether or feeling
as though bringing up the race issue will only lead to “no good”. Not only is this blight against the readers
but for all future generations who want the information recorded accurately.
The treating of a black ballplayer during the time as just another news story
makes those reading it feel as though what is happening isn’t important, or that
it will never amount to anything.
In addition to the Lamb article,
the Wiggins article brought up a very interesting point about the time period
in which the desegregation of baseball was taking place. In particular, about
how one writer, Wendell Smith likened the segregation and exclusion of black
athletes from playing in the majors was similar to the treatment of Jews in
Europe. In contrast though, many people
of the black community felt as though they should have some segregation so that
the black baseball leagues at the time could continue to provide a place for
ballplayers to play, as well as rival the playing ability of the major leagues.
Although Smith often reassured those that the desegregation of the majors would
do nothing but improve “black baseball”, in reality, it would lead to the
inevitable termination of those baseball leagues.
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