Personal Opinions

We’re told to never let our personal feelings interfere with our career. But what if our personality is our career? Plenty of people have made quite a fortune off their personalities, including several sports announcers we have grown to be familiar with. But should these people be personalities, or is their job based around professionalism?

Skip Bayless is a perfect example of a big personality. However, Bayless was previously writing for the Miami Herald before becoming a reporter for the Dallas Morning News. Now Bayless’s main job is making Stephen A. Smith’s eyes roll over and over again on ESPN’s First Take. ESPN, a sports NEWS station, right? So that must make Bayless a reputable journalist, definitely not.

Yet people trust this man’s opinion as fact. If we always listened to Skip, we’d all think Tim Tebow was literally god. But Bayless isn’t alone. So how do we decipher who is a legitimate journalist and who is simply a personality.

Michelle Beadle, next on the chopping block along with her co-host of Sports Nation Colin Cowherd. Sports Nation is a sports talk show. Not a sports news show. So as Beadle dawns her Jets t-shirt and jeans, she’s a personality. She inserts her opinion as she sees fit which is her job. Colin does the same, just with slightly worse opinions. Their jobs are based around people agreeing with them, but more importantly, those who strongly clash with them. Like what they say it not, that’s perfect because they love a good fight!

So are they at fault for making a career of personality? Absolutely not. It’s our job as the media to decipher what is factual information and what is opinion. It’s a lot easier in a newspaper where each section has a headline, but that doesn’t make it impossible. Sports Center will report what Ozzie Guillen said about Fidel Castro and it’s repercussions, but Sports Nation will tell how they feel and what they thought should have happened. It’s your job to decide who you listen to more closely.