Yep, that’s me, in a press box, reacting to something as if I’m Jean-Luc Piccard. You’re probably wondering how I got in this situation.
Howdy, y’all.
If you were previously signed up to my Buttondown newsletter, you’ve been imported into whatever this is and I’m going to apologize in advance for that.
If you’re new here, welcome. Some of y’all might know me from hits such as I-Almost-Was-A-Pope-Niece or That-Time-I-Defenestrated-Pat-McAfee-On-National-Television.
Beyond all that, I’m a baseball labor & economics reporter. I’m a Noted Overachiever and have an English degree, but I did journalism and economics minors, which then led to a M.S. in journalism, which then led to pursuing an M.P.P. in rural public policy but I dropped out of that program after I essentially told the director of the policy school she’s an herb. I kept all the economics textbooks, though.
Why am I making another attempt at keeping up a newsletter? Fuck if I know, man. I became a writer because I have an overactive imagination and initially intended to pursue a career in comedy before I derailed it to become a journalist. I’m paying that price now and everything I learned at comedy camp when I was 17 is now turned into shitposts on bluesky.
I’ve been online long enough to remember Xanga and Friendster and LiveJournal — of which I made so many friends who are still my friends to this day so if anyone tells you the internet isn’t real, they’re wrong — to Twitter and Tumblr and I guess now newsletters. I am of the belief, however, that if everyone is back to blogging using newsletters, we need to bring back Google Reader.
I don’t know how regularly I will be writing this newsletter. Considering I am someone who doesn’t know how to shut the fuck up, maybe it’ll be more often than I realize. But for now, leaving you with links below.
Media I’m consuming this week
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band at Oracle Arena, Oakland, Callif. Oct. 26, 2007
This was the first ever Bruce Springsteen show I ever went to and for many, many years now have been trying to find a bootleg of but came up empty. Until now. The only thing I asked for from my parents for my 16th birthday was to be able to see Bruce live. My parents spent about a decade in New Jersey during Springsteen’s Born In The USA heyday, before packing up from the Trenton area and moving west around when I was born. As a result, I have opinions on Central Jersey and pork roll, which has led many to believe I’m from New Jersey (California and Nevada, but close enough). Perhaps my fate of becoming a baseball writer was sealed this way.Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream by Megan Greenwell
I became more interested in private equity and how it operates and how it destroys during the course of reporting on a private equity firm buying up Minor League Baseball teams. It’s easy to throw out phrases such as “late stage capitalism,” but Greenwell shows the effects that it has on every day ordinary people and their lives. It’s hard not to become nihilistic when you work as a journalist; having a better grasp on what I’m reporting on and how it affects people — with the reminder that the majority of the population is closer to poverty than becoming a billionaire — reminds me, in albeit a hokey, Sorkin-y way, that journalism can still have a purpose.Regretfully, the entire Olivia Nuzzi saga.
This is a train wreck I can’t look away from. The bigger problems for me, personally, is the journalistic malpractice that she’s been accused of doing. I don’t care about most of what Ryan Lizza says (this man was also fired for being scum!) and I absolutely do not care to know anything about dirt cake brain. But the journalism? Hooboy, what a problem she’s created. There’s a lot of things to say, but one that I got hyperfocused on myself is the fact that she’s creating much worse problems for journalists who aren’t cis men. She, the dumbass who linked a story about journalist portrayal in Hollywood, going, “Why does Hollywood think female reporters sleep with their sources?” The reinforcement of this negative stereotype does nothing for gender liberation, further potentially casting more doubt on a person’s ability to do their work and to do so ethically. I’ve said it on bluesky and I’ll say it here: judge me not by my gender, but on the basis that I am a product of the Clark County (Nev.) School District.