Sunday, August 17, 2008

Costas and I wonder: "Cris (Collinsworth), what are you doing here?"

Washington Times' Tim Lemke wonders, like most of us, why NFL analyst Cris Collinsworth is at the Olympics. In fact, he even heard NBC's Bob Costas ask: "Cris, what are you doing here?" Lemke wrote earlier this week: "The host meant it in the most benign way possible, but it is valid to wonder why a former NFL receiver was narrating feature stories when NBC has a roster of actual journalists on staff." Lemke said Collinsworth is doing features that would be better left to reporters like Andrea Kremer or Melissa Stark. Amen. It's nice to hear someone say just what you are thinking.

As for another NFL star, Tiki Barber took a hit. Robert Weintraub of the Columbia Journalism Review hit Barber harder than he probably had ever been hit in the NFL. The headline on the Thursday's story: "Tiki, torched." And let's not stop there. the subhead on the story was: "MSNBC’s Tiki Barber fumbles his Olympic commentary." Here's Weintraub at his Tiki-bashing best: "Olympic Update is on for two hours a day, but as far as Barber is concerned, it’s Amateur Hour. During a segment discussing the USA hoops squad (assessing whether they will do better than in 2004, something of a ridiculous topic after a single game), he referred to the team’s coach, Mike Krzyzewski, Duke’s fabled Coach K and the winner of three NCAA titles, as “Mike Rezevski.” Barber also opined that the team was playing better this time because it had spent much more time together this summer, which isn’t the case—just under three weeks pre-Olympics, this year and four years ago." There's more, but Tiki might start treating us like he did Eli Manning.

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