Richard Ben Cramer. Photo: msnbc.com
Richard Ben Cramer died on January 7, 2013. He was only 62 years old.
Richard Ben Cramer wasn’t a surfer. He was a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and journalist, roughly of the same generation as Donald Takayama, although he frequented baseball stadiums around the Chesapeake Bay more than the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Although he wrote primarily about baseball and politics, if surf writers and surf media were to pay close attention to Cramer’s legacy, surfing journalism might yet find its golden age.
Cramer was what one might call an expert at constructing compelling portraits of public figures. His writing and reporting excelled at breaking down the doors to reveal the internal monologue behind the boldface figure. Cramer admonished the cynicism that accompanied stock journalism and tried to dig deeper, even when met with hollow answers and party lines. Hailed as the classic work in American political journalism, What it Takes, a 1000+ page memoir about the 1988 U.S. presidential election, revealed more about the character and humanity of its subjects than held to be possible at the time. Albeit widely deemed a relic of a bygone era of professional relationships between media and politicians, What it Takes was a journalistic immersion in the six candidates’ campaigns with one goal: to showcase the discipline and confidence that made each man want to run for the highest public office in the United States.
Cramer allowed big questions to guide his work and those questions resonated throughout his writings. He once stated that a central concern in What it Takes was uncovering why each candidate in the 1988 presidential election sincerely thought that he, as a lone human being among many, deserved to be the President of the United States and a world leader. It’s not that he understood the candidates’ words literally or took them at face value in trying to unearth such answers, but rather that he embedded such inquiry in his every word, uncovering the individual behind the façade and exploring the remarkable human beings buried beneath party lines.
What kind of insights might be uncovered if a modern surf journalist employed that same logic while getting close to Kelly Slater? Or used an interview with Gabriel Medina as a point of departure to meditate on the question “why does this young man think that he should win a world title?” Bookish surf fans can only dream of the type of work that might be produced if a veteran journalist spent a year on the WCT free of industry allegiances and corporate agendas—professional surfing’s analog to political party lines—in order to cover not only the world title race, but the behind-the-scenes social drama, relationships, and inner psychology that sponsors’ corporate brass try so hard to keep from coming to the fore and potentially tarnishing their brands.
With the exception of a few exceptional biographies, surfing is largely void of “big questions” in portraying its most important figures, past and present. Beyond comparing the budgets allotted political journalism to the (non-existent) budgets of surf journalism, one impediment to producing surf journalism comparable to the work that Cramer produced about baseball legends and pre-Gulf War politics is the overwhelming prevalence of the short form feature and the one-to-one interview in surfing media. Writers sit down or teleconference with surfers for minutes, not days, before they start clacking away at a final draft. Question. Answer. Repeat. Transcribe. Publish. More material. More viewers. Happy advertisers. Given this publishing paradigm, the depictions of our great athletes and shapers are more like spotty, safe, and mediocre caricatures than masterful portraits. Whether self-produced autobiographies published on a pro’s blog or editor-ordained print features, we’re asking safe questions and getting safe answers in the interests of keeping sponsors and advertisers happy. We’re “doing no harm” and failing to accurately render our most dynamic personalities. While this isn’t news to anyone who’s picked up a surf mag recently, it’s worth remembering in the wake of Richard Ben Cramer’s passing.
Certainly, Cramer’s work departed from the types of Q&A interviews that surfing media frequently sells as its final product. Yet the interviewee’s words became objects fit for Cramer’s deconstruction, elaboration, and interpretation, not a final resting place for the feature. Cramer spent ten days with Ted Williams’ fishing buddies in South Florida before even speaking to the great baseballer. The material compiled resulted in the 1986 Esquire article “What do you Think about Ted Williams Now?”, deemed “a hallmark of sports journalism” that resulted in two books on the famous San Diego-born slugger. Straying from cynicism—unlike most of us who have written about surfing, myself included—Cramer focused on the introspective side of Williams, celebrating his life beyond the field in spite of picking up on some of his demons.
Countless website profiles, “day-in-the-life” features, interviews, and web clips focus more on where the surfer buys his (I don’t say “her” because female surfers don’t get features with any regularity) beachside cup of coffee than what makes him wake up in the morning or who has facilitated their success. An unmatched passion for surfing, waves, the beach, board design, travel, and/or competition is what propels professional surfers to the elite ranks. That goes without saying. Yet Q&A in the surfing world has proven insufficient at exceeding sponsor-driven (or sponsorless, hungry, and cautionary) party lines and showing us more than a dude with stickers on his board and a colorful wetsuit, ripping. I’m not asking for surfing’s What it Takes, but I am suggesting that we can do better, and maybe even without biting the industry hand that feeds or without the industry altogether.
As surfing’s original innovators get older, veteran competitors punctuate their careers with keystone achievements, and young guns rise up to make history, we’re squandering opportunities to artfully portray an aging generation of surfing’s early pioneers, the sport’s greatest modern competitors, and its rising stars (and the families and personalities responsible for their success). These are exciting times in the surfing world. Will surfing’s Richard Ben Cramer please stand up?
