When Pat McAfee labeled the sports journalism industry as “curmudgeon bums” who want to “destroy sports” earlier this week, he might as well have been speaking directly to Pablo Torre.
The Pablo Torre Finds Out host broke numerous stories last year that, for fans of the Los Angeles Clippers or the North Carolina Tar Heels (to name a few), got in the way of the success of the team and probably didn’t feel great.
McAfee, spring-boarding off what became a controversial post-game moment between Jaguars head coach Liam Coen and a local reporter, argued that the media’s (mostly negative) response to the reporter’s support for Coen showed that sports journalists simply try to get in the way of the joy and unity that sports bring to fans. “Their days are numbered,” McAfee wrote.
In a recent appearance on Breaking Points, a popular online news show, Torre was asked to respond to McAfee’s comments and the broader implications of the moment Coen shared with Lynn Jones postgame.
Torre went deep, defending his ability to both love and critically cover the sports world while arguing that the same powerful people in sports that he tries to hold accountable are preying upon McAfee.
“What I would express to anybody who doubts whether a sports journalist loves sports is … I would say it’s not only childish but it’s a contradiction,” Torre said. “If you’re a sports journalist, two things can exist. You can absolutely love the games, have grown up loving the games, be able to give chapter and verse naming a bunch of guys, a bunch of players, be obsessed with the games that are being gate-kept, apparently, once you express an interest in telling the truth about something.”
Torre added that his approach to investigative sports reporting is intended to make the space even better and more fulfilling for passionate sports fans.
Still, he understands why people like McAfee or those fans in L.A. and Chapel Hill might see him as a scold. To fight off that perception, Torre said he is intentional about infusing fun into his work. PTFO often posts episodes in which Torre chats with other media figures or entertainers about their careers and their work, in addition to the more intensive reporting he does.
“The whole premise of what I love doing in sports specifically is to remind people that silly and serious, highbrow and lowbrow, smart and stupid, can all coexist,” Torre said.
At its best, Torre added, sports journalism can be fun for the audience precisely because it creates change.
“Oftentimes, it’s really fun to find out what people, especially extraordinarily rich and powerful people who would love more Pat McAfees saying exactly what he just said, it’s really fun to find out what they don’t want you to know,” Torre said. “And in sports … they know of this fandom and how fervent it is and how your love of something can be confused for anything resembling an allegiance to truth, which it’s not. It’s just not.”
Meaning: Being a fan makes people less accepting of harsh realities far more than pursuing those harsh realities makes it harder to be a fan. And Torre believes McAfee, in particular, creates a shield around powerful figures in sports by insisting that his show be celebratory and good-natured at all times.
When tough topics break through, Torre added, the commentators with wool over their eyes end up “out of their depth.”
“We exist in the real world,” Torre said. “You get into these stories that break through and everybody has to talk about, and a lot of people are all of a sudden out of their depth. Because the thing they were pretending, which is that we don’t exist in the real world, they have to engage with. And when that happens, a lot of people who say, ‘We just want to talk about games bro,’ they show their a**.”
The problem Torre — and many others, including fellow ESPNer Michael Kay — have with McAfee’s diatribe is that he didn’t stop after criticizing sports journalism. No, McAfee went so far as to say the profession is effectively useless and should be rooted out.
Torre contrasted that message by emphasizing that he is fine with people like McAfee producing his show how he wants, as long as they understand the consequences of that approach. And that bad actors around the world of sports are the enemies of fans, not the journalists who report on them. If they can’t, Torre said, they are demonstrating a “child’s understanding” of how media works.
“And it’s OK, by the way, if you want to be a person who doesn’t do journalism,” Torre said.
“Maybe you just want to be a fan. And all I ask, in that case, is for disclosure. Be open and honest about what you’re here to do. And don’t try to pretend that because you’ve chosen that thing, that the people over here who are imposing a greater degree of difficulty on themselves … are the people who are your enemy. It’s not that way. It’s farcical to put it in those terms. It’s like a child’s understanding of what the media is.”
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.