jy826 07/03/2008
I am a freelance sportswriter and Scoop Jackson is my idol and favorite writer ever. I first started reading Scoop's work in SLAM Magazine and was blown away by his work. I think of him as the "Hip Hop Jim Murray". His writes with a a unique and creative perspective and he is brilliant with the way he uses words. He often uses a unique writing style where he writes with very short sentances. For example he wrote a feature story on Khalid El Amin for SLAM Magazine in the March 2000 issue. The standard opening of an article for a journalist like myself might read like this:
"There are eerie similarities but you cant see them yet because they dont exist now. Perhaps those similarities are premature and exaggerated but they are there".
But Scoop instead writes the article this way.
There are similarities. Eerie ones. But you cant see them. Not yet. They dont exist. Not now. Premature and exaggerated, perhaps but they are there.
Scoop is an African American, and at times does inject alot of racial topics/discussion into his writing but I completely disagree with Oyeah487 who says "he brings race into everything, when its not necessarily an issue." At times Scoop has admitted he has been prejudiced but has written it is wrong for him to be prejudied such as writing an article on Christian Laettner for SLAM, whom he said he did not like because he played on the 91 Duke team that defeated UNLV, a team that he was rooting for, at the Final Four. Laettner he said greeted him warmly when he first met him and Scoop realized that he was wrong for holding such a prejudiced attitude toward him. Also as an African American perhaps he sees racial issues that people of other races/ethnic backgrounds might not see but I don't see him as a flat out racist. I often do not agree with some things he says when it comes to sports-related topics such as him saying that Julius Erving was the greatest NBA player of all time or that Chuck Daly is the greatest NBA coach of all time but of course that's what opinions are for. But all in all a great journalist and I would encourage everbody to read his ESPN.com page 2 column (although everyone might not think his grammatical style he uses is easy to read) and anything he was writen in the past.
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Oyeah487 02/26/2006
A decent writer, but some of his opinions are way off base. He brings race into everything, when its not necessarily an issue.
magellan 05/11/2005
Scoop Jackson is really growing on me - has rapidly become one of my must read sports journalists.
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