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I recently read an online article by Pat Jordan on Slate (slate.com) about the trouble with sports journalism today.

Jordan has been a sports writer for over 40 years and has spent much of his career writing for Sports Illustrated and other national magazines, where he often did athlete profiles.

Back in the day, as Jordan explained, he could call up any athlete no matter how famous (Mets Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver is the prime example) and the athlete would be happy to talk with Jordan and get the publicity. Seaver even had Jordan over to his house and grilled him steaks.

Back then the writers and athletes realized that sports writing was a two-way street. Writers needed the athletes to talk to them to get stories for their editors, and athletes needed the free publicity to get sponsorship deals and heighten their popularity. And, accordingly, each treated the other with dignity and respect.

Fast forward to 2008 and Jordan is denied an interview with Red Sox All-Star pitcher Josh Beckett. But not by Beckett himself. No, first Jordan has to talk with an agent, who has to talk with a publicist, who wants to know if it's going to be a cover story, who then has to talk to another agent, and on and on.

The end result is that Jordan, a respected veteran writer, gets a one-sentence denial from someone somehow associated with Beckett.

That's a big difference from showing up at the team hotel, going down to the pool and setting up an interview with Oakland A's pitcher Catfish Hunter in person on the spot, as Jordan once did in the '70s.

The problem now, as Jordan sees it, is that professional athletes are celebrities with the huge bankrolls to prove it. (Back in Jordan's heyday, athletes and writers made comparable salaries. With Tiger Woods worth nearly a billion dollars, I can safely say that's no longer the case.)

Today, athletes not only don't need magazine writers for publicity (who needs magazines when there's ESPN?), many athletes also don't feel the need to treat writers with any respect.

Thus, writers are reduced to writing, as Jordan puts it, "inconsequential puff pieces to satisfy those stars' publicists, or else the publicists will withhold their other clients from that magazine."

This, in turn, breeds contempt among writers and leads them to publish "gotcha" moments or to cherry-pick quotes that might embarrass the athletes. It's kind of how political campaigns treat one another.

Luckily, I really don't have any of these problems covering high school sports.

Sure, sometimes I experience a bit of a trickle-down effect of the kind of media culture that Jordan describes. But on the whole, my experiences as a sports writer and editor are a lot similar to Jordan's in the '70s and not of his today.

Most coaches and school athletic departments are proactive and work to develop good relationships with the paper and our writers, which generally leads to better coverage. That's not because we favor a team, but simply because the coach is great at communicating with the paper, and as a result we actually have the information to print.

And as far as athletes go, I've yet to run into a high school athlete who told me to talk to his or her agent or publicist.

If you ask me, that's the way it should be. Hopefully, it stays that way.

Contact Chip Corwin at ccorwin@michigannewspapers.com with comments that may be used in an upcoming column. Ê