A gentleman named Jordan Murphy made the sports talk show rounds last week wearing the mantle of "Aurora movie theater shooting survivor" who is now "trying out for the NFL." It's NFL combine season, which is the fifth most popular American sport behind NFL playoffs, NFL regular season, NFL draft and NFL pre-season.
This articulate and dignified young Colorado University graduate is a "survivor"of the 2012 shooting (in which a crazed gunman opened fire randomly during a midnight screening of a Batman movie, killing 12 human beings and wounding 70 others) in the sense that he was in the theater at the time. He was not shot or otherwise injured.
He had just completed his freshman year in college at the time of the attack. This tidbit about his life would have been available for discussion during basically his entire college football career, in which he played fullback and special teams. He never carried the ball for the Buffaloes. He was not a star. The position he plays is an anachronism in pro football.
Between a Pipe Dream and a Delusion
In other words, Jordan Murphy's combine attendance and NFL quest falls somewhere between a pipe dream and a delusion, depending on his mindset. He has less chance of being drafted than the best player in the Lingerie Football League.
Jordan seems like an earnest young man, but his story is not news. He isn't a shooting victim. The shooting had nothing to do with his football career. The story could have been told anytime in the previous three-and-a-half years. His presence at the combine is form without function.
Wheat and Chaff of Sports Talk Radio
So why was he all over sports talk radio last week? Because the number one bias of news media is not a left or right bias. The number one bias is a news bias. (Don't believe it? Explain two years of non-stop presidential race coverage.) With 24-hour sports talk on at least five national networks, there can't possibly be enough wheat to dismiss the chaff. So anything involving the NFL, a sweet-if-tortured narrative and a good interview subject is worth dedicating a segment to, especially during the dead sports period prior to March Madness, with baseball and football in hiatus and the NBA and NHL still slogging through their terminally meaningless pre-post-season exhibition calendars.
Certainly many of the interviewers are insufficiently self-aware to realize that Jordan Murphy's story doesn't hold together. After all, they're covering the combine, for god sakes. There are, however, still plenty of sports talk hosts, producers and executives who know better, but still gladly put Jordan Murphy on the air and coo over his pluck and strength of character. It's dreck -- but they can't help themselves.
They're biased -- biased in favor of news.
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