OPINIONS

Sports talk radio is starting to drive me crazy.
I've always loved sports and still do. I used to work in TV sports. But I'm slowly starting to despise sports talk radio in particular, and shock journalism in general.

I turned on ESPN radio this morning, and Mel Kiper Jr. was talking. His voice is enough to make you want to turn the channel, no matter the subject. But before I could change it, I heard him call a 20-year-old kid an idiot. He didn't use those words, but he might as well have.

Jevan Sneed was the starting quarterback at the University of Mississippi this past season. Yesterday, he announced he would leave school early and enter the NFL draft, and Kiper was going on and on about how he couldn't understand why Sneed would enter the draft early.. he is at best a 3rd-4th round pick.. could be a first round pick after another year in college... just doesn't understand the thinking.

The thing is, it's not for Mel to understand. Maybe Jevan Sneed isn't a good student and hates college. Maybe he needs a paycheck. Maybe he doesn't like his coaches. Maybe he doesn't want to come back to an Ole Miss team that will likely go 6-6 next season. Or maybe he is tired of living in a sometimes backwards town like Oxford (I'm from Mississippi, so I can say that)

Sports talk radio hosts could have been talking about many things this morning. For instance: How did college coaching salaries get so out of hand? (Coaches in the Southeastern Conference average about three million a year. It's no wonder the SEC owns the BCS) Why a pro athlete would store four guns in his locker? Or maybe they could just talk about the NFL playoffs this weekend. Any number of subjects would be better than a self-proclaimed draft expert second-guessing the decisions of a college kid.

But this seems to be what journalism is becoming. I doesn't matter what you say, just say it loudly. Have an opinion and make it a controverial one, if possible. It's what all the so-called 24-hour news networks do these days. Their most popular prime-time shows consist of people making bold, often controversial statements.. making them loudly and repeatedly.. and then dismissing anyone who might disagree with them. It's not news. It's Howard Stern without the vulgar jokes. It's saying something radical to shock people and get attention.

I'm getting a little off base here. But what I want to say this morning is this: being opinionated is not the same as being knowledgable. It just took me while to get there.