As a sports blogger, I feel compelled to comment on the Costas Now segment in which Deadspin.com head honcho Will Leitch and Friday Night Lights author H.G. "Buzz" Bissinger went toe-to-toe over the value of sports blogging (while Braylon Edwards patiently twiddled his thumbs).
Buzz gets pretty fired up about the whole thing, as you can see here, but Leitch does a good job holding his own. Bissinger's biggest complaint is that anyone can post anything and thus the quality of sports reporting is going down the tubes.
Earlier in the piece, Michael Schur, one of The Office's writers and a blogger for Fire Joe Morgan, makes the argument that the presence of blogs account for complete transparency in journalism and, therefore, they are a beacon of democracy.
I don't know if I would go that far, but I would say that blogs are the future and, while the writing style and skills necessary to be successful are different than traditional journalism, there are still basic tenets that anyone who consistently writes to a readership should follow.
I understand Bissinger's argument. There are many blogs out there just looking to find dirt on people, and I believe Perez Hilton (purposely no link) is the ultimate example of everything Buzz hates.
It's sad that a mean-spirited gossip site, without any other purpose than tearing people down and exposing unflattering pictures, can gain so much popularity. But the National Enquirer was around long before the Internet.
Like anything, you would hope that quality sports reporting will be respected and passed along, and those just looking to unjustly criticize athletes will fall by the wayside. Ultimately, I can only worry about what I post here and on my blog, and from the beginning I've avoided negative and obscene material.
I write about football, not about players taking rips from beer bongs on their days off.
Gone are the days of sports fans sitting down and reading the morning sports section for a well-crafted account of last night's big game. Fans in 2008 want constant updates about everything their team is doing. Who's practicing, who's injured, and how bad is it; who's looking good in preseason practice.
Most fans aren't getting this news at home—they're getting it at work while they scan the Internet, and the more updates a site can offer, the more hits it is going to get.
Though it may make professional writers like Bissinger upset, volume is trumping quality these days. Bloggers who can produce a high volume of quality material will be the most successful.
I love watching the Patriots. I root against the other teams, but there's a bond between NFL fans.
This isn't life or death, but it's fun to pretend it is.
I may make fun of the Jets, Dolphins, and the rest of the NFL teams who get in the Pats' way, but no more than I would expect in return. I'm not going to games looking to pick fights with fans from other teams (though some healthy trash-talking is always fun).
That's the perspective from which I blog. Sports are meant to be fun, and the true fan's voice is one that is never heard from traditional journalists. I find a fanatic's account of a game or team to be often much more interesting that an impartial observer's.
We are the ones who live and die with every touchdown, interception, and Super Bowl loss. And who are we kidding? There are no more impartial observers. Just ask "Judas" Tomase and the Boston Herald.
For more attempted Patriots insight, take a Hit from my Blog...
9 comments Last one added about 1 year ago — Leave a Comment
Justin Goar about 1 year ago
great article, well written and i like your point of view.
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JJ Stankevitz about 1 year ago
Very good article, Mike. I think there's a happy medium between the two, and that's why I'm going to study convergence journalism here at the University of Missouri. Everybody wants their news quickly, and to do that, journalists will have to learn to blog, do quick videos, and put their stories up online immediately following a game. A lot of the older sports journalists seem to have having a difficult time adjusting to it.
I don't think professional journalism—not just exclusively sports—will be wiped out by blogs like some people (like Bissinger) seem to fear. Until these blogs get access to players, coaches, management, etc., sports journalism will still have very high utility.
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David Wunderlich about 1 year ago
I posted something about this last week*. The main gist of it is that what's going on with blogs has been around on the Internet for almost 30 years. There's a bit of Internet history involved.
I have no idea what your Convergence Journalism curriculum will include, but it sounds like a fascinating line of study. I'd recommend reading The World Is Flat by NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman and The Long Tail by Wired Magazine editor Chris Anderson. They go a long way to describe the democratization of the means of production that allowed the "New Media" to come about, and especially the latter gets into the economics of it.
*If you're interested, here: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/20787-Mainstream-Media-Versus-Bloggers-The-Leitch-Bissinger-Episode-010508
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Dave Nemetz about 1 year ago
Excellent article Mike. One of the best things to come out of the Costas Now bit is the plethora of great, well argued, principled takes from bloggers on the value and purpose of what they do. It really serves to prove the folly of Buzz Bissinger's (and to a lesser extent Costas') argument that blogs represent unfiltered filth.
No one would confuse the National Enquirer with the New York Times, and by that same token no discerning sports fan would confuse a trashy, unprincipled blog with one that has great insight and analysis. The only difference is that the web levels the playing field for content creation and distribution (in some ways), so you can have thousands upon thousands of National Enquirers, and at the same time potentially thousands and thousands of New York Timeses.
With greater volume comes a greater need for filters and standards of quality, and that's where sites like Bleacher Report come in.
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Jeremy about 1 year ago
Definetly a great read, and I think the perception will change once the older 'traditional' writers move along and retire from writing. That is when (and currently happening) the perception will change.
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Sebastian about 1 year ago
Pros of blogging:
-instant media
-large audience of writers, opinions, feedback, viewers--- a true dialogue which was much more difficult in strictly print journalism
Cons of blogging:
-typos & poor writing made public
-uninformed writers and informed writers are placed on the same level, and it is up to the reader to find the difference
I liken this to my own field, graphic design. There are those who have an academic background in the field (school), and those who have learned because they have Photoshop on their computer. Both, however, call themselves designers, regardless of the quality of their work. Does having the formal schooling mean you are a better designer? No. And are all self-taught designers of this generation poorer designers? No.
Here in 2008, the market is flooded with designers--- which can be good for competition, but to a point. That point is where companies sift through a saturated market and spring for a designer without design education because he will work for less than a designer who demands salary appropriate for his level of education.
In the end, I feel the cream rises to the top in design, regardless of background.
If you're good, you're good. If you can't hang, you'll know.
And I suspect the same can be said for internet journalism.
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Sean Crowe about 1 year ago
Completely agree with this comment.
Nice article, Mike.
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Tim Coughlin about 1 year ago
What Bissinger, aka "Elitist Traditionalis" (if you've read both "Moneyball" and his response to it in "Three Nights in August," you'll know what I mean), fails to acknowledge is that all readers understand the source of the material they are reading at all times.
You can give people credit. If I read an article in the Canton Repository, I know it's more reliable than something on FreeDarko.com, for example, despite how intense that site is. (By the way, check out FreeDarko's response to this issue here: http://freedarko.blogspot.com/2008/05/stake-wont-leave.html)
The value of sites like CelticsBlog.com as a means to bringing a community together cannot be underestimated or sensibly disparaged. There is no real drain from blogging on the media at large. You can always read a site with a grain of salt or ignore it altogether.
Where Bleacher Report comes in in all this is very interesting, as it teeters the line a bit closer. Nonetheless, the "grain of salt" concept still applies just fine so long as readers figure out what this site is all about. Perhaps the title for every page within the site should include a more clear description of the site being a fan's production.
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John Fennelly about 1 year ago
I agree with both sides....
I beleive there is a dire need for alternative media sources in our society and blogs are a huge part of that. Most of it should not only be considered valid, it should be considered relevant.
But.......
Bissinger and I feel the same way about the wanton profanity and irresponsibility of many of the bloggers.
Many search engines group blogs in with mainstream media sources. Kids searching for the Yankees score may end up on a blog with hateful, profane, abusive, libelous and in some cases - illegal commentary.
There should be some type of censorship when it comes to comments that border or breach subjects such as sexual abuse and gay bashing. This will all stop when some blogger - who is not doing it as a hobby - gets sued for harassment.
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