At a time when respect for journalists ranks somewhere between televangelists and politicians, the outpouring of respect and affection for Tim Russert was something of a phenomenon. The main reason so many people liked him was that he was the antithesis of the hatemongers and charlatans – yes, this means you, Limbaugh and Michael Savage […]

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If you read David Hawpe’s column in today’s Courier-Journal, you may have been surprised to learn that he received an inscribed football from the members of the 1961-’62 freshman football team at the University of Kentucky. Why the surprise? Well, suffice it to say that in his long and distinguished editorial career, David has exhibited […]

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When I was sports editor of The Courier-Journal, I tried to cover the U.S. Open golf tournament every year. I did it mainly because I believe Louisville and southern Indiana is a golf hotbed. Of course, it helped that I loved to play the game, one of Dan Jenkins “dogged victims of inexorable fate.”
So I […]

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Whenever Jim McKay walked through a pressbox, he wanted to be treated as just one of the guys. His ego was the flip side of Howard Cosell, his longtime colleague on ABC Sports. Where Cosell was bombastic and vain, McKay was quiet, dignified, and totally unimpressed with himself.
Among the ink-stained wretches – or dashing knights […]

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ESPN proved to be such a smash hit with the nation’s sports junkies that Ted Turner decided to create a similar cable network for political and pop-culture junkies. He called it CNN, which begat the Fox News Channel, which begat MSNBC and all sorts of other around-the-clock cable channels.
The net effect has been to virtually […]

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During my years with The Courier-Journal, I provided Bob Schulman with a lot of material for his media column in The Louisville Times. Sometimes he took my side, sometimes he didn’t. But I never doubted that he cared deeply about fairness and ethics and integrity.
It was fashionable in the newsrooms to dismiss Schulman’s opinions and […]

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Welcome to the first Billy Reed Sports Poll, which will be conducted regularly on an informal basis to gauge the sentiments of local fans about personalities and issues. The results will be published when we get a minimum of 25 responses.
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This decision stinks. It’s one of the biggest blows to our culture since Gannett cut back the C-J’s statewide circulation and folded The Louisville Times.

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Whatever happens in the Rutgers game, he and the nation’s No. 1 athletics director have some ’splaining to do.

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It’s time to include everyone in the government process instead of just the lunch crowd at Vincenzio’s and Jeff Ruby’s. It’s time to start running Louisville as a city instead of as a private fiefdom for the social, cultural, and financial elite.

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