Slate’s Stephen Rodrick mourns the decline of newspaper sports columnists, who used to have the very best jobs in the business.

There was nothing else to do, no higher job to attain. Now, a sports column is nothing more than a springboard, a gig that starts you on your way to becoming a multimedia star.

Rodrick presents Washington Post columnists Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser as Exhibits 1 and 2 in his argument, though he admits both can still occasionally deliver the goods. His real venom is directed at a writer who is a little better known in the Mile-High City.

The Denver Post‘s Woody Paige, an [Around the Horn] panelist, now writes from New York so he can appear on ESPN2’s Cold Pizza every morning. The unifying theme of Paige’s Jan. 2 column was … Woody Paige. “I moved from Denver to New York, had an emergency angioplasty, became friends with Nona Gaye and Joey McIntyre, became a nasty judge on the TV show Dream Job … lounged on a hillside at the site of the ancient Olympics and watched women’s shot put, swam in the cobalt-blue sea off Hydra and alongside a dolphin in the Pacific Ocean.”

Yuck.

Daniel Brogan
Daniel Brogan
Daniel Brogan is the founder, CEO, and Editor-in-Chief of 5280 Publishing, Inc.