I saw Bill Simmons guest co-hosting Pardon the Interruption again today and it reignited a particular thought I’ve been having for a couple of weeks now. It might have begun with Simmons’ initial stretch of guest co-hosting a little while back, or even with his ongoing shift from columns to podcasts and occasional TV spots. I’m not implying he’ll give up his column or speculating as such, but his is an ideal example of what seems to be, among columnists and print/web journalists, a kind of media diversification. It’s clear that there are some writers who remain writers, neither seen nor heard (except for the headshot and, well, the silent reading) and other contributors of prepared written pieces who pop up across media, from print to radio to television to online, and my only two points are that 1) I think this is a flourishing trend and 2) I think this is a dangerous one at that.

You might argue that this is nothing new. Roger Ebert had written movie reviews for years, but then also started appearing on television. Leonard Maltin has done it, and it even happens at the local news level. You might also argue that this is nothing new to sports in particular. There’s plenty of talent shared between WFAN and SNY, or between WFAN and YES, or ESPN Radio and YES, and has been for years now. Arts or sports, Ryan Seacrest or Boomer Esiason, numerous examples can be cited that a tipping point need not have been expected, that this trend has been holding rather steady and it’s an evolution rather than a revolution.

Something feels different now, though. It could be the shock of seeing Bill Simmons on TV, his words made flesh, words I’ve read for many years now, suddenly given a visual life. It could be similar to that combination of elation and disappointment you might get when a favorite book is turned into a movie. The story wasn’t yours to begin with but your imagination did make it actively your own. In short, a little of the mystery is gone. Bill Simmons is just a guy. A brilliant guy with an encyclopedic memory for both sports and pop culture, but just a guy. It’s not necessarily that he’s out of place, there’s just still something strange about it.

Now, still, he’s not the only guy doing this. Just the other day I saw another writer I’ve read for a while, Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated, showing up on television during the MLB playoffs. Even Charlie Brooker, the British columnist and critic, has announced he’s giving up his longtime TV column just as he’s about to appear on television that much more. It’s an epidemic!

But this leaning towards visual media – which can only continue, given our general interest in bells and whistles – is only a real problem if it’s at the complete expense of the written word, and if not, then only for a certain portion of the population: Those without a face for television. Or the internet. Or for going out in public.

Something else that’s nothing new is the writer-actor divide. If they’re two people, one writes the good stuff, the other looks good while saying it, and they split the success in two (if not the money). We’ve been doing it that way forever. Those who just want to write can do just that. I think. I hope in all arenas, in the arts, in sports, specifically in writing and writing about these things, there needn’t be wholesale obligation to appear on screen.

Indeed, not fitting in, not being conventionally handsome or pretty, might turn a person inward, delving into fiction and fantasy, relying on things like intelligence and maybe a sense of humor to make up for any of the superficial shortcomings. Maybe that’s part of what allows the creative mind to flourish, out of necessity, out of wanting to create a world in which that person does fit in, or to give form or voice to some emotion rooted in marginalization. How much great art has been borne out of such insecurity?

Now, not all writers are hideously ugly, obviously. But, look at it this way: That picture at the top of the screen? Good as it gets ’round here, folks. Good as it gets. If the only way for me and other fake creative types to really make it is to be good on-camera, that’s it. Culture won’t be the same. Not that I’m contributing so much to culture, not at all. But if we become a world where there’s no mystery, where there’s no curtain at all to hide behind, even for a second, we’re done for. There will be no more magic, literally or figuratively. If we’re all science and no faith and all our shortcomings are broadcast in high-definition, we’ll have gained all the knowledge we were looking for and more but we’ll have completely lost our collective imagination. We should differentiate, as Indiana Jones once hoped, between fact and truth. In the end, if we focus only on what is and not what could be, you might call that being realistic but I call that being hopeless.