Returning to business reporters vs. sports reporters

In an earlier post, I made a crack regarding how business reporters are often serious, and sports reporters are not - and then noted that Jim Cramer was similar to the latter.

But then I continued doing some reading, and ran across the biography of Janet Paskin, recently hired by the Wall Street Journal as Digital Editor, Markets. This was interesting:

Janet worked as a reporter at SmartMoney magazine and Money magazine – honing skills first developed as a ferocious sports reporter in Long Island and Philadelphia.

So it sounds like Janet's sports reporting bore more of a similarity to Howard Cosell than to, say, Fred Roggin. So I searched for Paskin's byline, and found this 2005 article co-written by Paskin and Bill Hughes. It began as follows:

Mark Sabia, yellow-flagged microphone in tow, has been a regular in press boxes at Yankee Stadium, Shea and Madison Square Garden for years. He pushed his way to the front in post-game interviews, button-holed players for one-on-ones, and complained when he felt he wasn't being treated fairly. In other words, he was indistinguishable from the rest of the small-market television sports reporters in New York's locker rooms.

Except the outlet Sabia represents — Westchester Cable Services — doesn't exist, according to the Queens County District Attorney. Sabia, who lives in Ossining, was arrested Monday when he showed up to cover Opening Day at Shea and was charged with scamming season passes for almost all of New York's professional teams, as well as for several World Series and League Championship Series dating to 1998. He was charged with five felony counts of falsifying business records and 16 misdemeanor counts ranging from petit larceny to criminal impersonation.

The tone of the article certainly isn't of the yuk-yuk variety - although even the most flippant sports journalist would probably get serious with the issue of press credentialing.

It could have been worse, however. Imagine if, back in 2005, Mark Sabia had claimed to be a blogger. In those days, that would have merited the death penalty.