Blogs Are Apparently A Sign of The Apocalypse- At Least That’s What I Learned From Costas Now.
This weekend I watched a special edition of Costas Now, entitled "TAKING STOCK OF THE SPORTS MEDIA LANDSCAPE, INCLUDING THE RISE OF INTERNET BLOGGERS AND SPORTS TALK RADIO," and I was actually yelling at the TV. The show was split into three segments, the second of which was about blogging. Though they were specifically dealing with blogging as it relates to sports, I think that a lot of their points could be extended to blogging in general.
The panel for the blogging segment included Bob Costas, deadspin.com editor Will Leitch, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Buzz Bissinger, and Cleveland Browns wide receiver Braylon Edwards.
The beginning of the segment included a montage of tabloid-ish posts from deadspin, a sports-focused blog with a lot of humor and a good dose of opinion. The site’s motto is "Sports without Access, Favor, or Discretion." It was the classic setup: show that a news source is sensationalist, defaming, and without credentials, then sick an old-school, Pulitzer Prize-winning author on them. In this case, Will Leitch from deadspin represented the bloggers, and Buzz Bissinger represented the old school. I’m not saying that’s a good or a bad thing, it’s just a thing. And it’s a thing I’ve seen before.
The segment started with Costas talking about how those on the side of bloggers have framed the issue:
- What’s the problem with more information and quicker access to it?
- What’s the problem with someone being able to voice their opinion?
Costas then added his opinion:
But those are not the reasonable criticisms of the worst of the sports blogosphere. The reasonable criticism is of the tone….of the gratuitous potshots and the mean-spirited abuse. That’s the reasonable criticism.
It was then time for Will Leitch to defend himself before Buzz Bissinger interjected with "I think you’re full of shit." He then added:
I think that blogs are dedicated to cruelty, they’re dedicated to journalistic dishonesty, they’re dedicated to speed.
He later added:
There are some good blogs out there, but they’re few and far between.
Watching Buzz Bissinger try to label all blogs as cruel, dishonest, stupid and trashy was driving me nuts. But it also made me realize a few things:
- Buzz Bissinger and old-school journalists do not know what a blog is. Go ahead and call blogs shallow. Say that blog authors are not as serious as newspaper columnists. But at least know what a blog is. Watching the Costas Now segment, it is absolutely clear to me that Bissinger just doesn’t know what a blog is. He clearly does not understand the difference between a post and a comment. If you’re going to argue that bloggers are bad because they lack credentials, at least do your homework.
- People entrenched in mainstream reporting feel threatened. I totally understand that. It’s a tough time to be a newspaper reporter. Subscriptions are down and competitors on the web are giving away the story for free. If I were a newspaper reporter, I’d probably be defensive too.
- One-way journalists are deathly afraid of two way conversations. Back to the comments vs. posts discussion…The biggest difference between newspaper stories and blog posts is not the talent of the writer. Nope. Instead, it is the ability for the reader to respond.
- To mainstream reporters, access=credentials. One of the biggest points of contention in the segment was the idea that professional journalists have unique and exclusive access to their subjects, allowing them to write stories that the blogging masses would never be able to do. Leitch takes the opposite perspective in that as soon as you’re given access, you are beholden to your subject.
- It’s okay to trade objectivity for inside access, but criticizing your subjects is not okay. Guys like Bissinger are horrified when they hear bloggers criticizing their subjects. It’s just not what the old school guys are used to. If a newspaper reporter were to openly criticize a baseball player, it’s likely that they’ll lose all access to that player. Because of that, reporters are constantly trading objectivity for access. This is a foreign notion to bloggers, who- for the most part- lack access of any kind.
Take a few minutes and watch the clip. Tell me if I’m completely wrong (or right) and let me know what you think.
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