June 13, 2008
EVEN the nicest, most well-intended talk can sound awfully cheap.
The passing of Jim McKay on Saturday inspired tributes from network bosses here, there and everywhere. All were basically the same: McKay was one of the finest people in broadcasting, a beloved and trusted man who earned the nation's respect with superior writing, story-telling and reporting. He wasn't a class act; there was no act.
The descriptions seemed accurate. McKay's substance was his style. No screaming (What need is there to scream into a microphone?), no shtick, just a steady blend of dignity and credibility.
Yet all those tributes from all those TV executives got me thinking: Could that Jim McKay even find work in the business today?
After all, if current network bosses thought so much of him, why haven't they looked for or cultivated more like him? Are such broadcasters considered passé? Are they trending extinct?
ESPN did a good job on Saturday and Sunday procuring and presenting tributes to McKay. Included were testimonies from Bob Iger, the president of Disney, ESPN's parent company, and a former ABC boss, and George Bodenheimer, president of ESPN. Both spoke of McKay's understated and dignified presence, the kind that allowed him to become the signature presence of ABC Sports.
So why, then, has a Chris Berman, a self-promotional dancing fool, become the signature presence of ESPN/ABC? Why does ABC/ESPN seem more eager to duplicate or to find the next Berman or Stuart Scott or Brent Musburger rather than the next Jim McKay?
Why is the hunt always on for the wise-guys, the blowhards, the screamers and the self-smitten intruders as opposed to those who might remind us of Jim McKay?
McKay for years was the easy-on-the-senses host of ABC's British Open coverage. Yesterday, ESPN's host of the U.S. Open again was Berman, who seemed to be on his best behavior, but whose usual clownsmanship infuriates audiences the way McKay never could because he never would.
How is it that McKay is recalled for so many noble qualities that now seem antiquated?
