Why do sportswriters resent blogs?

So why do some of us get our panties all bunched up about blogs, and not the telegraph, then? The telegraph, radio, and cable TV weren't direct changes in the medium of the printed word. The Internet is. If you can't see that, it isn't even worth getting into.

 

Bruce, go read some baseball gamers from the late 1920s and early 1930s (I have). Then go read them in the late '30s and early '40s. They are two completely different animals.

Want to guess why?

If you said radio, you were correct.

 

That's a fair point. There's a certain amount of truth to that. But the thing to me is, and I'm not aiming this at you personally, I'm so sick of listening to my fellow sportswriters bitch and whine about the fact the peasants all have a chance to air their opinions now. Can it be a hassle? Yes. Does it make our jobs more difficult? Yes. Might it end up devaluing our profession? Debatable. But, things have changed, they're not turning back, and bitching about it only makes us seem like a bunch of out-of-touch crybabies. How about if we collectively suck it up and grow a pair of balls and figure out a way to make changing times work to our advantage (which is what newspapers are trying to do by adding blogs to their Web sites, some of which are very good) instead of griping because Joe Blow is ripping us on his message board?

 

But if changing with the times means sucking up to the team or organization we cover in order to win back the readers that true-believer blogs have siphoned off, I think that's where a lot of us definitely draw the line. If keeping this business afloat meant being a sycophant, I decline. At some point, you have to place integrity before readership, before the bottom line, before your own advancement and/or popularity among the masses.

 

I don't equate changing with the times with becoming a sycophant.

 

Bruce, you're proposing that we turn blogs into a negative positive. And frankly, I see no way of that happening. Blogs are not a good thing to anyone who is truly a journalist, because it lowers the standards of publication.

Period.

 

I see some writers are getting upset by the message board comments. This isn't a new deal. Fans have always ripped anything negative about their team. They've always praised writers who were homers. The only difference is now there is a public forum for it. Before it was at the office, the mill, or the local watering hole. Now it is on the idiotnet and the wack fringe folks spurring each other on.

It's not new. Just more public.

<i>Just once I'd like to catch all my typos before I hit submit</i>

 

(I haven't for three years, so I don't see why anyone else shloud should...)

 

You said newspapers had a "near-monopoly over the dissemination of information."
Now you're talking about the "printed word." It's not the same argument.
We get our "panties all bunched" -- certainly your words, not mine -- because the vehicle for delivering the news is different and, as a result, a different threat. But, as I've stated before, 90% of bloggers don't deliver news, only opine second and third-hand information.

 

So why should sportswriters care about these bloggers so much? Not saying all do (or you do), but there certainly are a fair share judging by the article posted here and the venom spewed on this message board whenever anyone mentions a blog or blogger.

 

A better question might be, why would you champion it?

 

Easy answer - because of how combative and dismissive they are of the "MSM." It's insulting. Then you get upset because the "MSM" writers don't embrace all of you? Go figure.

It's the same reason that old-school scouts aren't kissing the "Moneyball"/Jamesian people's asses.

Those people showed up on the scene and just started essentially dismissing and making fun of all of their forbearers' life work. Then they played dumb and innocent and acted like, "Why do they hate us so much?"

Same thing with bloggers.

If respect is what you seek, you don't gain it by acting like a condescending jackoff.