In the latest move of aging curmudgeons transferring from newspaper to television, Ratto is on his way to the stabler landscape of cable TV.
Word out of the San Francisco Chronicle newsroom is that Ray Ratto, the paper's longtime prolix sports columnist, is leaving the newsprint world -- a move Ratto has confirmed to SF Weekly.
Ratto is jumping ship and heading over to Comcast, where he'll do TV work and write a blog; he is already a frequent contributor to the Chronicle Live show on the network. His last day at the paper is Sunday.
And really, when you're thinking photogenic, this is the image that immediately springs into your head.
Ratto has been the favorite punching bag of most of the SB Nation bloggers over the years, mainly for being a provocateur. He's a columnist without an original thought in his head, one who feeds off the public consciousness to write what he feels they want to hear.
Niners Nation talks about his inane form of writing:
After last weeks game against the Cardinals, Ray Ratto wrote a Negative Nancy article about the 49ers and how there's no reason to hope for good things this season.
Some lines from his article:
"'Early?' Looks like too late from here.
'Lots of football left to play?' Oh, dear God.
'Progress?' Where?
'Good signs?' Yeah, right."
There actually WERE good signs last week. The offense showed plenty of competence and the defense roughed up the Cardinals. The Cardinals just did a good job of controlling the clock, and the turnovers ruined the 49ers.
...
Ray Ratto won’t eat his words, though. He’ll just write new words that will be equally as ridiculous and equally in line with the knee-jerk contingent, and he won’t be asked to reconcile the differences.
Silver and Black Pride reflects on his lack of knowledge.
And speaking of haters, who pissed in this guys cornflakes.
Did Ratto even watch the game?
I am pretty sure DHB had three thrown his way. And the first deep ball was thrown perfectly- Jamarcus just didn’t look off Hamlin and Hamlin knocked it away.
The defense on the second drive was pathetic all the way around. I am choosing to take some comfort in the fact that Nmandi was off the field.
Athletics Nation discusses the haterade he spews on the As:
Because controversial-hater writing spurs comments
And comments on line are hits on the websites and hits on the websites mean $$’s
...
I am by no means defending him as a columnist, in fact I think he’s a one of the reasons why I think bay area sports journalism has taken several steps back in the recent decades. He’s a black-eye for sports journalist and will keep on writing extreme biased opinions. The more you guys comment the more likely he’ll get to write another column.
...
The only thing Ray Ratto hates is exercise
he’s the The Chronicles cranky columnist and every big newspaper has one. Ostler is the silly one and Gwen Knapp is the uh………….well I really don’t know what she does other than write twice a week about PED’s.
Ratto’s job is to be controversial and sarcastic and if you think he hates your team and this causes you to be upset then he’s doing his job because there’s a good chance you’ll read what he writes next.
But this isn’t any different than any other Ratto column. This is his style. And although I don’t really enjoy it, perhaps others do. Why did this one bother me so much? I guess because this is a really important topic that deserves better. When millions of dollars are potentially going from academics to athletics, it matters. When an entire sport that means a great deal to a group of students might be cut, that matters. When the Chancellor, professors, donors and the Athletic Department get together to decide on a course of action, it matters. This topic deserves better.
But you know what? I don’t even think this is Ratto’s fault (other than for choosing to write about a complicated, nuanced topic while knowing he only had a few inches of column space to do so). It’s a fundamental problem with the sports page and the newspaper. The writer of the original article (Ratto’s ‘Comrade Asimov’) couldn’t be bothered to include information provided by the Athletic Department. If the news staff doesn’t have the time, space, ability or desire to provide a more complete analysis, how in the hell can we expect a sports feature columnist to do the same? The San Francisco Chronicle appears to be fundamentally unable or unwilling to fully examine the subject.
Looks like the well has dried up for Ray though. See you on TV, where the rest of your uninformed media-types congregate.
Loading comments...