Last night, Ian O’Connor posted a column about the Brady Flat Balls scandal. It’s the sort of meat-head nonsense you get from sports columnists these days. The thing is, it contains a lie that has now been obscured with careful editing. The current opening graph is this:

Under his oversized ski cap, Tom Brady could not hide from the fact he was convicting himself in the court of public opinion. The quarterback of the New England Patriots admitted that footballs pumped up to 12.5 pounds per square inch are “a perfect fit for me,” yet swore he did not notice a difference in the AFC Championship Game when most of the balls had significantly less pressure.

The original paragraph and the basis for his entire rants read this way:

Under his oversized ski cap, Tom Brady could not hide from the fact he was convicting himself in the court of public opinion. The quarterback of the New England Patriots admitted that footballs pumped up to 12.5 pounds per square inch are “a perfect fit for me,” yet swore he did not notice a difference in the AFC Championship Game when the balls weighed two pounds lighter.

If you read the comments, people caught it quickly and mercilessly mocked the idiot for not understanding grammar school science. This guy actually thought footballs weighed 12.5 pounds, one pound of weight for every pound of air pressure. Therefore, a fully deflated football would weigh zero and float away.

I’ve had experience with sports reporters in press boxes and interview rooms. Most reporters are surprisingly obtuse. Sports reporters are uncommonly stupid. The only skill they possess is a willingness to spend their lives on the road watching ball games. That and the ability to avoid noticing anything prohibited. These are the same people who failed to notice the use of steroids in baseball, when it was obvious to most fans.

The other thing with this story worth noting is that Ian O’Connor pretends to be an intellectual on TV. Television is entertainment so all of the chattering skulls play a role, like comedians. Larry the Cable Guy is not actually a cable guy and his accent is entirely contrived, along with his act. O’Connor pretends to be the cerebral guy on the stage, despite having a two-digit IQ.

The difference between a comedian and the fake intellectual is the former is honest, while the latter is dishonest. Pretending to be an accountant, dispensing advice for a fee lands you in prison for fraud.  Pretending to be an accountant on a news program, dispensing advice for a fee wins you an Emmy. The parade of fake military experts is a good example of how lucrative fraud is on television.

The reason stupid people, like Ian O’Connor, are so common in the news business is narrative journalism. The news business has been dominated by the Cult for decades. Instead of reporting the facts of a story, it is a race to jam the facts into the narrative, which is always based on some left-wing fable.

O’Connor embraces this philosophy and flatters his bosses by pretending to be an intellectual, who embraces their philosophy. That means rising quickly to the top.

Multiply this a million times and you have the modern American news media.