What is it with sports writers?

The public is either fooled by or resigned to the prancing, finger-pointing, self-absorbed, pack-like behaviour of journalists regaling us daily with their penetrating political analysis of people and groups they have long disqualified. Many of us, though knowing the media asylum is all but barred to those outside the nomenclature, will persist in chipping away at the yards-thick ideological wall. At least there's indication that the sound of the chipping is getting on their nerves.

But it is an entirely different case with sports writers. What a teary, clubby, inward-looking and hysterical bunch they are. And it appears no one has the interest or the inclination to subject their efforts to any scrutiny, close or passing, or otherwise.

One gets an impression there's a manual somewhere full of sneering, smearing, mocking, sanctimonious words and phrases that is consulted whenever the opportunity presents itself of blowing an incident up to the size of the Hindenburg - with the secret hope, I suspect, that like the Hindenburg it will burst into flames showering the surroundings.

There are a number of sports writers who are champions at this. I won't name names, but one of them works for (you guessed it) Melbourne's Age. A number of incidents come directly to mind, one being the media gang-bang of Ricky Ponting a season or so ago. What's going on here, I asked friends? Ponting, on any sensible reckoning, has got to be one of the all time greats of Australian cricket? You would think from the hysteria at the time that he was some grovelling overrated upstart that deserved the undiluted contempt of the Australian public.

One such teary sanctimonious piece appears in today's Herald-Sun by well-known sports writer Rebecca Wilson (no relation). She is commenting on something star footballer Ben Cousins did that was captured on camera, vision that has been repeated as usual ad nauseam. She opens up with:

BEN Cousins has caused all of us to do more soul-searching than any AFL footballer of his, or anyone else's, era.

He is infuriating, impossibly handsome, troubled, talented and extremely flawed.

Cousins has done more than any other athlete to alienate himself from his fans.

We know the history, yet even knowing it and hating what he has done, few of us wished him anything but success and inner peace.

What's this? It sounds like she's Cousins' spurned girlfriend. Most of her report is in the same teary mode, deploring the way Cousins' has let people down, people who love him and want to give him all the chance in the world. But what does that great communal love get in return? A knife in the back and heartless betrayal. What heinous act was Cousins guilty of that provoked such tearful reflection? Later we read:

Cousins has contempt for everyone around him. With one foul gesture, he told us so.

The look in his eyes was of a lout who is so smug about his place in the world he doesn't need anyone outside his dubious ring of "friends".

These are the same superb advisers who guided him into the darkness of what we thought was a life put behind him.

He is not sorry. He is not contrite. He doesn't give a toss.

He has forgotten the one last chance the Tigers gave him, as well as the outpouring of love from a stream of young fans who obviously adore him.

His pathetic reason for his actions would make a parent weep.

Not only does he show no remorse, but he cites a feeble excuse in a weak statement.

He gave the finger to a mate in the broadcast box - he didn't think it would be broadcast to the wider population.

Give me a break, Ben, and go to your room.

This would be laughable if it was not so delusory and ignorant. That's right, these feelings of tearful betrayal are because Cousins gave the one finger salute to someone pointing a camera at him.

I am as disgusted as anyone at the crudity in word, gesture and behaviour that one is continually confronted with in public. Walk through any shopping centre and you will constantly hear language from young mouths unimaginable forty years ago, and often you will see behaviour that would have had the police called in. Say anything to these louts and you risk getting not the finger but a fist in the face, no matter what age you are. Catch public transport at night and you know you risk being the victim of thuggery that will go unpunished.

Let's get things into perspective: the one-finger salute is a symptom of the generation Cousins belongs to, a relatively small symptom as objectionable as it is.

Cousins, like other well-known sportsmen who have the moral age of a ten-year-old, has enough of a struggle with his retarded maturity, without this sort of silliness from sports reporters who cannot see beyond the point of their nose and the columns their lurid writing fills. And I'm leaving aside the hypocrisy implicit here.

If Rebecca Wilson and her clubby sports pals are so affronted by Cousins' crude gesture, then they with the rest of the community should turn their minds to the sort of education and social attitudes that have spawned the generation Cousins belongs to. There's the real problem.

In the meantime, wipe your nose and hold back with the firewood and stake until it's clear Cousins is unreformable.

I would hide myself under the bed with embarrassment if I wrote anything so silly as the following:

The finger at the camera was soul-destroying for the faithful and those among us who love a happy ending to a tragic story.

Comment: gerard@gerardcharleswilson.com