April 30, 2008
Costas and the Bloggers
The Big Lead reviews Bob Costas and the "State of the Sports Media" show that aired last night. Thankfully, I don't have HBO so I could concentrate on baseball games. It doesn't sound like they treated Will Leitch of Deadspin very well.
Update: Will Leitch gives the behind the scenes view of what happened.
There are plenty of people in the "old" media who enjoy blogs and find them useful. It always seems the blowhards get the stage, however.
Posted by David Pinto at
09:33 AM
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My only issue with blogs is that the responses generated to the articles are anonymous and tend towards being hateful, in bad taste and incessant sarcasm. MSM deserves the sarcasm (and to be de-panted on a regular basis).
Despite this, I believe in the Locke/Jeffersonian ideal of allowing as much information as possible, and hope that people are smart and sane enough to pick through the arguments. It works better if people have to declare ownership of their ideas in the egalitarian public square that is the web.
Enlightenment is an old concept that seems to be forgotten today. Same with Logic and Debate. A proper blog provides the framework for debate and enlightenment... newspapers provide information in a daily publication.
The anonymity of the medium allows for people to be 'more' profane and 'less' logical but that's no different than real life. It's just in real life you rarely get an audience beyond your friends and family.
'Picking a random blog comment and wielding it as a club to bash "blogs" is like picking a random romance novel off an airport bookstore shelf and saying, "This book sucks. Fuck you, Tolstoy -- your medium is worthless!"' - Ken Tremendous at Fire Joe Morgan
"My only issue with blogs is that the responses generated to the articles are anonymous and tend towards being hateful, in bad taste and incessant sarcasm."
Have you seen the comments on mainstream newspaper sites?
I agree - they also are extremely caustic, especially the responses to politcal issues.
But MSM is not responsible for the responses - the people who post the noxious comments are. MSM is simply being disingenuous by its use of blog responses to stories in the background while trying to supposedly maintain "high values" on the front page.
My point is that if people take ownership for their comments as opposed to hiding behind a moniker, they will be more likely to exchange ideas without excessive rancor.
Buzz and Bob proved themselves old. Gang-tackling Will was not cricket---worse, it was low. Too bad Will was civilized; maybe next time he'll bring Guido the Knee-capper with him, and take out the fat, old, balding white guys. WC Heinz...? In the 21st century, Heinz is a nuisance to progress, when we have a thing called "video" and another thing called "crunched numbers" and writers like Bill James, Rob Neyer, Tom Tango, et al.
Ridiculously bad TV. I am done with Bissinger & Costas. I am disappointed by them. I can't imagine how they could redeem themselves.