The "Lost World" of Sports Illustrated
Among the best American magazines, S.I. stands alone
By JOE GIOIA
While the death of the literary novel makes hot copy for the whiny classes, it is at least debatable. There is, alas, little doubt as to the morbidity of that other old staple of a culturally informed middle class, the literate magazine.
Do not confuse "literate" with "literary." We have literary magazines like mice (where else will you find all that whither-the-novel nonsense?). Rather, the literate magazine presents clearly written stories on a variety of topics from a consistent point of view. It does not pander to advertisers or celebrities. It strives to accommodate readers of diverse ages, backgrounds and incomes in making sense of our social scene. Wary of politics, it has a feeling for fun as well as a moral tone that seeks the best and exposes the worst in human behavior. Eschewing computer-generated bombast, it mixes text with graphics in subtle and assured ways. It is impeccably copy edited, and favors a simple declarative style over literary flourish. Finally, it strives for frequent publication to carry the burden of events at close to the same pace as they unfold.
Are you stuck coming up with any magazine to fit this menu of virtues? How about a weekly that's been published out of New York for almost 45 years, one that remains a financial wellspring without forsaking high editorial standards or abandoning its general audience for the commercial safety of affluent demographic splinter groups. Give up? The best magazine published in the United States today is, without question, Sports Illustrated.
Yes, Sports Illustrated.
To compare a sports magazine to those of a putative general interest, let us first consider just how general the interests of those magazines really are. Will Harper's ever run a story about a violent crime that does not somehow involve its writer? Would Vanity Fair publish a cover story that called a celebrity an antisocial time bomb waiting to explode? Or describe a living millionaire as racist and lonely? Would The New Yorker consider 8,000 words on a Manhattan high school student, found guilty of rape, trying to get a college scholarship? Or The Atlantic underwrite a man's quest to reach a former Olympic competitor in an Ethiopian jail?
Not bloody likely. But Sports Illustrated did. Every magazine has its editorial boundaries of seriousness, affluence and celebrity. Yet in resigning itself to the world of games and their players, S. I. presumes to cover all the pressures, dangers and joy of real people's lives (no mass market publication devotes more space to the notable accomplishments of common citizens), something that other magazines all but gave up on long ago.
This year, along with reporting the NCAA finals, Stanley Cup playoffs and the apotheosis of the Chicago Bulls, the magazine has credited its readers with being interested in race relations in South Africa, the Bosnian War and Ethiopia's police state. Besides covering the Masters, S.I. ran a feature allowing LPGA pro Muffin Spencer-Devlin to out herself as a lesbian. Family values? S.I. showed us the NFL's defensive monster Bryce Paup cuddling his four-year-old son on their Iowa farm, and profiled gay U.S. figure skater Rudy Galindo's rise to a championship after caring for a brother who died of AIDS.
While the editors have had the sense to maintain S.I.'s connection to how people live today, the popular success of sports has created a kind of rift plateau, pushing the magazine out of reach of the climatic changes that have killed or mutated so many of its peers. Much of S.I.'s style comes from this Lost World status: it still maintains a stable of full-time writers and photographers and a cadre of regular freelancers combined with extensive editorial and artistic support staffs. And its demographic profile is practically prehistoric: young and old, rich and poor, racially mixed, predominately male but with a good female readership. (All of these classic virtues have still left the magazine as adrift as any in cyberspace, though S.I.'s Pathfinder site has recently turned a corner and is now something more than a hard-to-load version of its print self.)
No magazine uses photography to better effect, which is probably the main reason why S.I. has competed so successfully with TV (where it seems to troll endlessly for subscribers). TV can only run replays. S.I. has a particular genius for capturing character and the moment. Its single shocking picture of baseball umpire John McSherry collapsed at home plate preserved the terrible power of unexpected death, something that video loops vulgarly erased. While photography in other magazines has declined to an arty preciousness or gruesome and fatuous illustration, pictures in S.I. show admirable quality and range, from action shots to portraiture to reportage to... cheesecake.
Ah yes, the Swimsuit issue... One would like to ignore it completely, as one suspects would many staffers, but it is a fact of life, a tired multimedia phenomenon. Its unprecedented popularity in the '80s gave it the status of Republican porn. But real porn is making a comeback while these glossy curiosities endure, buffed and photographed like cars. The rumor is that, after this year's grim excursion, next year's effort will be shot by a top style talent, a Ritts or Demarchelier, to render some new life to the proceedings. This may or may not be a good thing. After all, what's a lost world without a few dinosaurs?
Joe Gioia, former Camera Columnist for the New York Times, has written for Modern Photography and American Photo. He maintains his own web site of photo work. He can be reached at jag101a@winternet.com