Old Reporters Hate Blogs « Run Up The Score

Old Reporters Hate Blogs

May 1, 2008 by Run Up The Score!

Posted in Deadspin, all you can eat turd sandwiches, anger management issues, boo everything that moves, delusional arrogance, get off my lawn!, teach your children well | 9 Comments

9 Responses to “Old Reporters Hate Blogs”

on May 2, 2008 at 6:55 am1 Cock D

Two points I want to make regarding Buzz’s statements:

1) Buzz is a fuck-face and a douchebag who doesn’t get it.

2) Perhaps Buzz (and Wilbon) fail to realize the high level of disdain for the corporate media, both in sport and political coverage. I can speak for many when I say that over the last 10-20 years the fourth estate has become more of a PR mouthpiece than an objective observer and reporter of events. While there are still some real journalists out there who are digging up stories (Kudos to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s work on uncovering the unearned MBA awarded by WVU to the daughter of the WV Governor… maybe they can investigate the Rich Rod situation and shed some light there), increasingly it seems that the writers simply take a release from a business or government official, make some pithy alterations and publish a piece as “news” rarely, if ever, taking a position that may upset the corporate or governmental powers that be. The whole first four years of the current Bush administration operated like this with Time and Newsweek simply publishing ideas and photos distributed by the Pentagon in the rush to war without ever challenging the information or independently investigating. The same thing has been going on in the sports world: writers who have access do anything they can to keep that access and turn into mouthpieces for the organization. The writers covering the Pittsburgh Pirates are a perfect example of this. Despite 15 straight losing seasons, every pre-season write-up has a rosy hue and even when they are 20 games under 500 at mid-season, the talk is of the few tweaks needed to have a successful second half(!!!). The weenies that cover the team are too chicken-shit to call out any real problems for fear they lose their access to the team plane, the buffet and the right to sniff the jocks of the players. Mark Madden is a great example of what happens when one takes a (debatably) controversial position against the organization: after criticizing Hines Ward and the Steelers for an autograph session at which Ward charged fees starting at $175, the Steelers curtailed his access and successfully pressured a local TV station to take him off the air (or they would cut the stations access). Now how in the hell can one expect a fair, objective press that will raise issues in that kind of environment.

That kind of situation makes it perfectly clear why the new generation of “real journalists” who wear the badge of “muckraker” tend to work the internet. If reprisal is the reward for doing real journalistic heavy lifting, it only makes sense to do that writing in guerrilla fashion until such time as ones bona fides are established.

Moreover, the mainstream media’s general attitude towards their responsibility, which seems to be “hos gotta eat too”, has left many viewing them as something between feckless victims and willing collaborators. Either way, the respect for them has waned greatly in years - look at the general disdain for ESPN anymore. 15 years ago, ESPN was the greatest thing since sliced bread: edgy, funny, always on. I never missed a SportsCenter. But now I can hardly sit through one. Sometime after Disney came in, it all seemed to go to pot. The good talent left and was replaced by half-assed imitatiors; decision-making seemed to be done by executive committees rather than talented writers and producers; the talent that stayed even became arrogant (Berman, I’m looking at you). And so now there are sites dedicated to taking potshots at all of the above: heroes turned villains through the evolution of what we once held dear. A loss of innocence in a way.

This all comes back to one simple point though: as fans of sports we have become disenchanted with those who cover sports and how they do it. As nature abhors a vacuum, we have filled the space with bloggers like the good folks at Black Shoes Diaries and Brian Cook at MGoBlog who provide insightful analysis and have dropped reading Drew Sharp and Bob Smizik. We read EDSBS for general CFB news and some great humor instead of a half-assed half-page section of newspaper that only talks about ND and a local school or two.

What the sports media need to realize is that their product is too broad, too lazy and too slow for the modern sports consumer. 30 minutes online gets me everything I want to know about Michigan, Penn State and general college football and with more laughs than 90 minutes of SNL and an hour of Sports Center could ever hope to provide.

Yep - it sucks to be the dinosaur, I guess.

Oh - please remember that since I am merely a commenter on a blog, any ideas, thoughts or feelings that I may have expressed are utterly devoid of any value or use and that I should just stick to masturbating and playing Grand Theft Auto in my mother’s basement.
on May 2, 2008 at 7:59 am2 am19psu

Just pointing out that there is nothing wrong with masturbating or playing Grand Theft Auto
on May 2, 2008 at 9:13 am3 Cock D

The basement is the issue, I think…
on May 2, 2008 at 10:51 am4 jd

cock d-excellent points.

personally, i go to blogs for the biased opinion. i go to them because the writers, although sometimes not the most eloquent, are very emotionally/personally invested in the narrow range of subject matter. Most don’t get paid, and they continue to write-this means very much to me.

most importantly, most blogs i frequent are written by people that have similar backrounds to me; i can “connect”, if you will, with them in that we went to the same school, or sat in the same god-awful 700 level seating at the vet, or had to fight through the mardi-gras masses in the causeways of the mellon arena.

for the most part, i can’t say that about the traditional print. these guys have access and means, and i think that kind of distances themselves somewhat.

there were two aspects about the costas chaos that truly distrubed me:
1) costas and buzz could not distinguish between the “comments” section, and what a blogger wrote.
2) costas and buzz are under the assumption that bloggers consider themselves as journalists. i don’t consider myself to be a journalist when i post on my site, and i’m sure most others feel this way as well. i am just an ignorant sports fan with an opinion, and that’s it.

dammit, my mom wants to vacuum my room, so i have to cut this post short.
on May 2, 2008 at 11:29 am5 PSUgirl

I admit. I almost never read mainstream sports media these days - I frequent a few sports sites - but that’s usually for scores, etc - and I rarely read the “commentary”. When I do I almost always get annoyed by something.

I have never in my sports fandom been a fan of sports journalists - and their attempts to procure “big news” at the most ridiculous of times.

It’s very much the same as it was/is with politics - but the candidates and news outlets have figured out that blogs are a powerful medium. This year at both conventions bloggers are able to obtain press credentials and at the DC, there will be bloggers “embedded” with each delegation.

Where you get your sports info may not affect what teams you root for or sports you watch - but then, maybe it does. I never would have sorta, kinda, just a little bit, rooted for Florida in 2006 if it hadn’t been for EDSBS - and my November (following the SC win) prediction (in the comments, of course) that uf would win the championship.

Access to other fans (and their opinions) opens, confirms, feeds our biases, notions, loyalties, etc. While we all suspect (and know in our hearts) favoritism in sports broadcasting - it’s supposed to be objective and “above” the masses. Blogs are not - and that’s what makes them fun to read, follow and contribute (to).
on May 3, 2008 at 7:14 am6 Pete the Streak

Gee, Buzz - you’re concerned your child will grow up reading ‘profane’ and ‘vulgar’ blogs, but not at all worried about him watching his own father spewing language on YouTube that would make a sailor blush? Uh huh.

Of course your career longevity as a sports columnist is limited; can’t you still write books?

He reminded me of someone during that roundtable, but I can’t figure out who. Bobby Knight, maybe?
on May 3, 2008 at 10:07 am7 Run Up The Score

Some bloggers are journalists. Some like to post dick jokes and call it a day. In many ways, that’s the beauty of the medium. There’s no fear of losing access, no worry about someone editing your work, no deadlines, and (in rare cases) some bloggers can earn rather handsome money for their hard work. All of this can be done without a journalism degree from Northwestern or a tedious internship at the Altoona Mirror…and I think that’s what bothers people like Bissinger and Wilbon the most. These dastardly bloggers haven’t paid their dues and occasionally use bad words — how can anybody reasonably expect a properly trained journalist like me be expected to eat at the same table with one of them? In Bissinger’s mind, every blog is run by Perez Hilton.

There’s a weird combination of their thinking “I’m way above this kind of crap” and “oh my God, they’re collectively sapping our readership.”
on May 3, 2008 at 4:51 pm8 ash90

“Run Up The Score.” You’ll come for the Penn State Football, you’ll stay for the all you can eat turn sandwiches
on May 4, 2008 at 11:27 pm9 Cock D

One additional point is how the debate featured on Costas’ show dovetails with Chomsky’s discussion of language and politics. Specifically how in the hard sciences, people care not for your qualifications but rather they care whether you can add something substantive to the academic discussion (e.g. Chomsky’s speaking on the topic of mathematic linguistics - while he is not a mathematician, the math geeks are still intereste in what he as to say and whether he can add something to the dialogue).

However, in the fields that may be considered less rich in intellectual substance (economics, political science, football even), people’s viewpoints will often be attacked not on the basis of their substance, but on the basis of the speaker’s credentials to make the comment. The irony of this is that these fields all deal with social realities in which we all deal on a daily basis, yet somehow because of a lack of advanced economics training, political experience, or a press pass, the opnions and thoughts are assailed without even a cursory pass over the substance.

This is what I am thinking when I hear Buzz’s rant. He assails Deadspin for being a blog, for lacking press credentials, for not having an editor. These are all functions of what Deadspin and other blogs are and are, as such, assaults on their credentials. The one point he raises that approached validity is the “meanness” argument. But he undermines his own statement by pointing out the comments on the blog - work of independent posters and not the blogger. Even if he had properly stayed the course of the meanness argument, the Deadspin guys (and all bloggers) could respond with, of course it seems mean to you - you are a sycophantic, front-office bootlicker, team buffet eating, jock-sniffing scrub. Of course, that would make the blogger “mean”.

Or simply a candid observer of the state of contemporary sports coverage.

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Old Reporters Hate Blogs

9 Responses to “Old Reporters Hate Blogs”

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