Democracy Dies Without a Sports Section š
Too much "eat your vegetables" coverage means a less informed public
Historian Claire Potter and I both found ourselves with mentions in the recently released Epstein Files š¤¦. On Monday at 12:30 pm CET/6:30 AM EST, we will discuss on Substack Live why this happened, and I will talk to Claire about Jeffrey Epsteinās links to higher education, and how Epsteinās former associate, Donald Trump, is trying to exert pressure on elite universities. Here is this weekās column, in time for the Super Bowl.
āI will have to learn a new way to read the paper, since I have started with the sports page since the late 1940ās.ā --Don Graham, whose family owned the Washington Post for 80 years, after he learned the paperās sports section was being eliminated by Jeff Bezos.
I, too, used to read the paper like Graham. As a kid, I would check the Boston Globe for the Red Sox scores, and then I would try to read the other sections. I often couldnāt understand the particulars of the Middle East peace process or the Kosovo war. Nevertheless, the sports section was a gateway to reading about the outside world.
I suspect that many people read newspapers like this. They start with a lighter section like the sports or the advice column and then move onto something heavier. The New York Times has successfully invested in its cooking section and Wordle. Lighter fare has subsidized more expensive and difficult stories.
This past week, a third of the Postās staff was let go, including its sports and books section and much of its international coverage. Even if the paper executes its stated strategy of doubling down on politics and national security coverage, a lot fewer people will be reading it because it will offer less. The paper still does excellent accountability coverage of the Trump Administration -- but it will get fewer eyeballs.
