Mark Cuban on Sports Journalism

So lemme see if I've gotten this straight ...

Mark Cuban throws a foul-mouthed tantrum on live, national TV after his team gags in a playoff game, then blogs about it on a non-restricted Internet site ... and he's a victim of the media?

What a jagoff.

(The word was passed down from my grandfather to my father to me, born and raised on Pittsburgh's North Side. And, hey Mark, everybody in town knows what that word means.)

 

I have a question: Why are Mark Cuban's views on how the media should conduct its job any more valid than a writer saying what he should do as an NBA owner?

The problem with newspapers today isn't know-it-all writers. It was the decision made by suits that we should shape our industry based on focus groups and the last angry letter-writer.

Screw him.

 

And if Rockerfeller had beaten Edison to inventing the lightbulb or the Vatican put their efforts into creating a printing press when Gutenberg was fooling around with alloys and inks, we wouldn't know who they were either. Saying "He's just lucky because someone else didn't think of it first" isn't a valid criticism. Cuban can be a clown, but he had the smarts to see a potential market and the willingness to make it work. I don't question the man's business acumen.

 

He's right on a lot of stuff.

But not this one.

 

http://sportsjournalism.org/sports-media-news/mark-cubans-idea-to-ban-internet-only-writers-myopic-and-silly-too/

 

Still valid:

 

Wow. It's been years since I've seen the word "weblog."

 

I think I understand where Cuban is coming from, but he is throwing out the baby with the bath water.

I look at Yahoo News, CNN.SI, ESPN.com and the others as legit news sources with (hopefully) an editorial process. Those types of sites, without question, should be allowed in locker rooms right next to newspapers.

What I think Cuban is focusing on here are the blogs or sites without an editorial process. There is no filter and little to no consequence of a blogger firing off basically anything, from Dirk is on drugs to Kidd cheats on his wife. All the blogger would do is shut the site down and start a new one.

If Cuban draws in line in the sand this far away for logical, when he "meets you half way" by allowing in Yahoo, SI and ESPN, he has been able to eliminate the blogs, which might have been his goal all along.

 

I like Woj's rebuttal, too. Good for him.

 

Years ago, I once had a pretty funny back and forth with Cuban over e-mail about our Fan Cost Index and methodology. He told me he would encourage everyone he knows not to do business with us. Little did he know that the Mavericks bought every product we sold and were extremely helpful in other matters (you know, professional).

As an NBA exec told me back then, "They do a lot of things there he doesn't know about."

In closing, I told him I look forward to seeing him on TV in one of his ill-advised Mavericks football jerseys.

 

Mark Cuban is a blowhard, and a crybaby, and a petulant fan with too much money and time on his hands.

That said, he is also a brilliant businessman who knows a little something about the media industry. Even the reporters who cover him, and kind of despise him, will admit as much. We should listen when he talks.

He makes some tremendous points in this piece.

 

Cuban has a well-known beef when the people at ESPNDallas.com. Frankly, I assumed that's who he was targeting here.

Generally speaking, I agree with what he is saying: There are some journalists out there working to be fair and balanced, who realize the world doesn't work in black and white, that there are shades of gray and nuances to every story. And there are those who are just out for the easy headline. Many, but not all, "Internet reporters" fall in that category, because their worth to their bosses seems to be measured only in clicks.