Tag: journalism

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I Read the Would-be Trump Assassin’s Book So You Don’t Have To by River Page (The Free Press)
‘Ukraine’s Unwinnable War’ is a window into the strange mind of Ryan Routh.

I came across an article in my feed reader from The Free Press titled I Read the Would-be Trump Assassin’s Book So You Don’t Have To. I could not read much of the article because it is paywalled (it was part of one of my Real Clear feeds). That is all well in good since I do not have to read the book it is about. But one quote from the article excerpt caught my attention:

Although Routh’s precise motive remains unclear, his self-published book—Ukraine’s Unwinnable War: The Fatal Flaw of Democracy, World Abandonment and the Global Citizen—Taiwan, Afghanistan, North Korea and the End of Humanity (2023)—offers some insights into his worldview.

What was the precise motive of a man staking out a golf course to shoot former President Trump? I search and search for an answer, again today I search.

(PS: While I am sure his book must be riveting I submit that I would be more interested in what he was doing on his myriad foreign excursions.)

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Sports Illusrated, fresh off an AI article controversy, selected Colorado Buffaloes college football coach Deion Sanders as its Sportsperson of the Year. Mr. Sanders took over as head coach at Colorado after the football team went 1-11 in 2022. Sports Illustrated noted that the team improved greatly in Coach Sanders’ first season:

As for the actual football? It’s been an adventure. Colorado is massively improved over 2022, when it was by far the worst Power 5 program. The Buffaloes were outscored by 29.1 points per game last year, compared to 6.7 this year

The team lost its final six games to finish 4-8. While that is better than the 1-11 record Colorado posted in 2022, it is still sub-par.

Sportsperson of the Year is a nebulous award, But a college football coach coming off a 4-8 season, regardless of the circumstances leading up to the season, does not seem like a likely candidate. If they want to honor Mr. Sanders, why not wait 2-3 seasons to see how Colorado football looks after Mr. Sanders has more time to build the program in his image and bring in his recruits? What award be left to give Coach Sanders if Colorado is 11-1 at this point in 2025?

On the other hand, if the Sportsperson of the Year award is to honor sports figures who give human and AI journalists things to write about, the eminently quotable Coach Sanders had one of the best cases in 2023.

(I would have submitted now former Texas A&M football coach Jimbo Fisher for earning $76.8 million to not coach Texas A&M.)