Voice Post

                MCBias writes a blog that is self-admittedly and blatantly biased, as are many sports blogs. However, unlike other sports blogs, the “Moderately Cerebral Bias” blog contains posts not only about major men’s sports, but women’s sports as well. The overall tone of the entire blog, including these posts about women’s sports, is unapologetic, and conversational.

            In the post titled “Women’s SportsWeek: She is the Champion, My Friend”, the author begins by stating,

            Ah, so much easier to twist the work of another to make a cute title than rather thinking up our own, eh?

            This line characterizes the author’s tone throughout all of the blog’s posts. MCBias readily admits that the title lacks originality, but does not apologize for it. The posts on the blog also involve the audience with a sort of “we’re in this together” mentality:

            Usually, most of us are controversial enough without help, thanks much.

            The author also frequently uses rhetorical questions to bring up seemingly obvious evidence to support main points.

            And what happened? Ask the players themselves. Are you Martina Hingis, the Williams sisters, Anna Kournikova? Well then, you are a marketer’s dream, and you should spend more time on fashion/movies/travel/becoming and entertainment superstar than on actually improving your tennis game…On the other hand, are you Lindsay Davenport? Well then, you should prepare to be made fun of because of your looks, and have your accomplishments ignored.

            MCBias writes for an audience with a general knowledge of sports and pop culture, as seen in this passage. However, this style of writing involves the audience by putting them in the situation being used as the author’s argument. 

So in oh-so-weak retaliation (of the lack of honoring a champion for their achievements), today I am posting pictures of more obscure women champions over the years.     

          The author sees this as a way of striking back, but uses “oh-so-weak” somewhat sarcastically to imply that recognizing these athletes is powerful, not weak, and that the athletes themselves are powerful. However, others may see this as weak.

            In the more recent post, “FortyYears after Title IX, Women Remain Amateurs”, the author concludes that Title IX has “miserably failed in jump-starting a larger interest in women as athletes or creating an equal playing field”. Much like in the first post, the author quickly establishes a strong point of view and states it matter-of-factly at the beginning of the entry. The author then proposes multiple possible solutions in garnering interest in women’s sports, using rhetorical questions along the way and writing in a thinking-out-loud, stream of consciousness type of style, using phrases such as “I was impressed by…”, “I also quite frankly wonder…”, and “It won’t be easy…” to reflect his thoughts.

            Perhaps the true way to fulfill the spirit of Title IX is for a woman to one day play shortstop for the Dodgers.

            At the end of both posts, the author asks his readers to share their own opinions, encouraging more audience interaction. Also in both posts, the author uses hyperlinks to citations and references to previous posts. In all of his posts, there is a liberal use of photos and videos to support his points of view, including a video of an impressive last-second goal by Abby Wambach in an incredible display of athleticism by the USA women’s soccer team, which was still not enough to garner enough interest for a professional women’s league to succeed in the US. The video emphasized the sheer awesomeness of women's sports and MCBias helps bring out how little that is recognized.