Good Idea Dan, But You Forgot To Bring the Funny

And what, exactly, is your point?

 

A lot of the questions are about video games, as you'd expect. These questions don't seem any more or less syncophantic than you'd expect of a video game company president. (Example: "Q-Have you decided whether 38 Studios will license an engine for its flagship title, or will you develop your own?") The rest of the questions in the thread I looked at are largely about baseball: what kind of changeup is Curt throwing, what's the bullpen situation, are the umps enforcing the 12-second rule, a question about Curt's contract situation which he somewhat angrily declines to answer. Indeed, it seems like exactly the mix you'd expect, unless you were fiercely and unreasonably agitated about a star player choosing to bypass the media and interact directly with fans.

 

Sums it up beautifully.

 

"Humorless petulance" of course, describes the attitude of a lot of writers toward the interactive parts of the Internet. As aptly illustrated around here in two threads' worth of responses and counter-responses to Shaughnessey's masterwork.

 

My point is that this is exactly the kind of question that gets asked 100 times by 100 reporters during spring training and you have pointed it out in support of Simon's contention that the commenters on Curt's site ask more probative questions that the columnist would.
That seems to me to be a non-fact.

 

I'm not supporting Simon's contention about anything...In fact, I never noticed his post. I always skip straight to yours, they're so entertaining.

I was responding to your invitation to find the probative questions in the comments. I saw the sentence, figured you hadn't even looked at the blog and snagged two questions off the top.

I have to ask, why are some people (not necessarily yourself, though pretty clearly Shaughnessy) so threatened by stuff like this on the Internet?

 

Are you saying we're blogophobic? That's illogical. We can think something sucks, is worth exactly what they charge for it, and resist any notion that they're in the same species as us without being afraid of it. I'm not threatened by people who have sex with goats -- as I'm not a goat, don't own a goat and don't know anyone who owns a goat -- but I don't have to respect either them or their goat-fucking.

 

See there....that is clever.

Shaughnessy's piece? Not so much.

 

Blogging = goat-fucking?

Well, at least you're not threatened.

 

My question is, what is it about blogging -- and the Internet in general -- that arouses such hostility from a segment of our industry?

 

We have the same hostility for the radio creep who does nothing but cull that morning's newspaper for his "local news report."

 

Look, there are good blogs and bad blogs, just like there's good sports radio and bad sports radio. I still don't get why blogs arouse such strong feelings.