For what I hope is the last time, but is clearly not: the level of discourse on Athletics Nation, and Baseball Prospectus, and SoSH, and Joe Posnanski’s blog, is every bit as high (if not higher) than what you can read in the best newspapers in the country. Bissinger’s hare-brained attempt to prove Leitch an uneducated oaf by asking whether he had read any W.C. Heinz (which failed miserably when Leitch had, in fact, read some W. C. Heinz) was a perfect example of the old guard’s attitude toward the new guard: you little shits don’t get it. You don’t know how to write. You have no gratitude or appreciation for those who came before you. So: #### you. (P.S. I have never really read your blog.) (P.P.S. #### you, though, anyway.)
There are sports bloggers (and message-board posters) who write very well, in my opinion. There are those who love Ring Lardner and David Halberstam and Robert Creamer and Roger Angell. They try to write well, and entertain, and contribute to the universe of sports reporting. Please read them, Buzz. If you find nothing of interest, you can swear all you want. (For the record, FJM is extremely pro-swearing. We just feel you should be funny while doing it.)
If there is anything tangible and helpful to take away from Mr. Bissinger’s performance—and it takes a good deal of chaff-sorting to get anywhere near this little nugget—I think it’s this: a lot of the discourse and sub-discourse (commenting) on the internet is, in fact, pretty shitty. This is not news, though, really. A lot of newspaper writing and editorial writing and every kind of writing is shitty. It’s just not as immediate and anonymous and easily-accessed as Internet writing is. Thus, the net has this reputation, now, as being a nihilistic and thoughtless meetingplace for people to spew venom. Partially deserved, partially not, whatever—point is, the part that is deserved can be altered. We can all probably do a little better in this realm, by making sure that whatever we write has an actual point, and some thought behind it. So, there’s that.
Okay. I guess that’s it. As the kids would say: [/serious and unfunny discussion of Internet journalism standards]. Coming soon: more swearing!
Repoz
Posted: April 30, 2008 at 08:43 AM |
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Indeed.
You win!
Heh. What the heck was Braylon Edwards doing there? Did he have anything to say?
Yoko Ono!
Oh, yeah, I'm lovin' that one.
More to the point, who would ever think to accuse a newspaper reporter of incompetence simply because they hadn't read any W.C. Heinz?
No, we have many more reasons to call them incompetent than that.
It may not be necessary, but it doesn't hurt. A ridiculous number of the great jazz musicians had classical training, and the best of the early white rock musicians absorbed all the R&B;that they could get. And very few great writers didn't grow up reading other great writers.
None of this, of course, negates the point that there are just as many historically illiterate MSM people as there are in the blogging world. And if you're illiterate in the field of sabermetrics, that can make you look just as ignorant as Elvis Tilley.
He talked about the unfairness of Deadspin posting pictures of Matt Leinart doing a beer bong and canoodling in a hotub with (allegedly) underage girls. HE AT HIS HOUSE. THAT HIS HOUSE. He seems quite dumb.
Leitch was awesome. He just sat back and let Bissinger make a complete ass of himself.
1. You don't need to know any one elder.
2. You probably should have some knowledge of some elder(s).
It's funny, because so many blogs/websites do to sports columnists what many sports columnists do to athletes: point out mistakes, and occasionally extrapolate them to some sort of character flaws. The show didn't cover any of this, even though later segments pointed out how the same experience/trained columnists that are so preferable to bloggers can be "gasbags" (that was from Al Michaels) and now have a strained relationship with the athletes they cover.
FJM just seems like the typical dork bullies who have gotten picked on all of their lives, and for some strange situation they are now the room monitor for a class that is two years younger, and get a chance at revenge at the younger brothers of the kids that picked on them.
But I have read tons of sports writing. Would missing out on one writer's material make me unqualified? Have 100% of all newspaper sports writers read his stuff? Most certainly not.
I can guarantee that there is plenty of sports writing that I have read that Bissinger has not.
Now I think I'll have to watch the show since it sounds like it was a delicious train wreck.
Rockbusters!
Q: Someone offers you that bit of the egg, but you refuse.
A: Yoke? Oh! Oh, no.
Classic. Head like a ####### orange.
I'll get there. Then I'll #### on Bissinger's head. I wish I could unread Friday Night Lights.
Or maybe Bissinger wrote his piece because he thought could do a better job than Heinz.
Personally I love FJM, appreciate their passion for sports and enjoy their desire for quality writing/commentary. But I've been watching games with the mute button on for years already.
1. You don't need to know any one elder.
2. You probably should have some knowledge of some elder(s).
You put it better than I did.
Heinz was a great writer, one of the best. In fact he may be in the top 2 or 3 in terms of pure writing ability. But since he really hadn't written much of anything for the past few decades, and since most of his books can't be found in any book shop, it's unrealistic to expect anyone much under the age of 40 to have had much exposure to him.
Part of the problem is that with the demise of good used book shops, younger readers may have unlimited access to titles on abebooks and amazon, but since the books aren't right there in front of them, if they've never heard of an author to begin with, they're out of luck. Those countless amazon recommendations are often pretty good, but still, without being able to browse through the book itself for a few minutes at your own pace, it's very hard to figure out whether it's worth buying. It's one more example of society taking one step forward and one step back.
But Buzz's point is that because the midget porn director is sleazy, so too is Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg.
Or that, because the Weekly World News is trash, nobody should read the New York Times.
Why would they use Deadspin as their example of a sports blog?
Sure, they may sometimes be guilty of a strawman here or there, but they never fail to link to the source material so you can judge for yourself.
Why would they use Deadspin as their example of a sports blog?
Didn't Bissinger actually not manage to read something from Deadspin? The comments under Leitch's response (linked in the lead-in) seem to indicate that what Bissinger was reading from his print-out was actually from BDD or something.
No, his point is Leitch is producing crap, and isn't even in the same galaxy of a Scorsese and Spielberg. Did Buzz lump all bloggers together, or was he singling out Deadspin and Leitch? I am not sure; he was too bat #### crazy to tell.
Probably a combination of:
a) Maybe Deadspin gets more hits than other sports blogs (I have no idea if this is true)
b) The producers are as obsessed with gossip as they perceive everyone else is
c) They wanted an athlete on the panel, and figured he'd have more to add about tabloid-style blogs than analytical ones.
d) They figured that if they got someone from FJM who can quote stacks of examples of sportswriters make factual and other errors, those sportswriters wouldn't want to be on the panel.
it sounds like the blog reps took the high road.
I wouldn't say that. Leitsch made some mocking gestures when Bissinger was talking/ranting.
To be fair, he didn't get a whole lot of opportunity for a well-reasoned & polite verbal response, did he?
Well, that's true. It was hardly Lincoln-Douglas up there. Still, I'd say that making goofy gestures was his only alternative, and it probably just made him look worse. That's the nice thing about blogs - you can (and he did) get the last word in.
In the next ten years, you will not blog, you will not post on any blog, you will not read any blog, you will not allow your publicist or agents to promote you or any project that you have control over to any blog or blogger.
In ten years, if you have accomplished this you will be one of two things: dead or a luddite.
Last year, Deadspin was the the second highest trafficked sports blog on the internet (AOL Fan House was number one, although some might debate if that is really a blog).
The irony of this statement is just too good to be true.
Bissinger doesn't need blogs to promote his work. In fact, his writing commands attention from bloggers, who up until last night, have generally fawned over Bissinger.
The same thing could probably be said about many of those who read blogs.
Why would they/we be Luddites? 'Cause we don't d/l 'em to our iPods?
True. Probably because blogs will go the way of dial-up, newsgroups, Angelfire personal websites, Napster, etc.
Ten years is a very long time in terms of the technological revolution. Who knows what is down the road, but chances are very good that there will be a sect looking back to this time as the "good old days" in which technology didn't move so fast.
Not once he published that steaming "Three Nights in August." Just a horrendous piece of crap.
People will begin to reject blogs the way they rejected mainstream media, for being out of touch. Instead, everyone will write their own material, and no one will read any one else's material because they are sure to disagree with it. That way we can all stay in our own protective thought cocoons!
Your snark brings up a good point. I'm positive sports blogs are more out of touch than the MSM. Sturgeon's Law aside, mostly zero professional training, experience, and input shows bloggers to be the xenophobic slobs in mom's basement everyone with a press card stuck in their hat thinks they are. The Deadspin typers are as young, white, entitled, and ignorant as it gets (whether they're young, white, or entitled I couldn't tell you), and the Tim Donaghy scandal had basketball bloggers wondering why someone with a 6 figure salary would be greedy, or gamble. People thought the Kobe jumps over a car ad was real, and gave the tyke-enslavers at Nike free advertising. I'm often shocked at the lack of any sense of reality at all.
I haven't read that one -- I heard it was bad, although it received some pretty glowing reviews. Still, Bissinger is the Friday Night Lights dude, so many bloggers, epecially those outside the sabermetric community, treated him well. In fact, I think Leitch used to rave about him.
Or they will grow bored with the fad, much like the hoola hoop or the pet rock.
I think that is a little strong, but what has been shown is that bloggers aren't capable of sustaining a prolonged revolution against MSM -- one reason being that certain blogging mindsets spend too much time patting themselves on the back for perceived victories against the powers that are.
I'm genuinely baffled here. We must not be reading the same Deadspin, the same NBA blogs, or the same mainstream columnists. Either that's the case, or you're just choosing to engage in the same overgeneralization as raving-mad Bissinger was last night. (Costas was eager to help him, it should be noted.)
Xenophobia doesn't preclude a press pass, nor does stupidity require a blog. There's plenty of it to go around, no matter where you look.
Does anyone really believe that? Better at what? Making jokes? I think this is the type of bogus either/or (blogs vs MSM) thing that feeds right into the Bissingers of the world.
But Joey Gathright really did, right?
Not better. Just different.
I didn't mean the MSM is an intellectual haven for truly worldly people. I'm saying the worst of sports blogs is worse than the worst of MSM. I'm comfortable making that generalization. Read the NBA section of the main-streamy blog you work for. Brett Edwards is either getting a check from Nike, or is unaware that regurgitating press releases is a totally hot, cut-off from the real world basement blogger move. I'm still laughing at your fellow Postmen's report about Scott Skiles cursing in his direction.
Well, yeah. I don't think anybody is going to argue that; even without the lower entry requirements, once you've got more than a handful of bloggers per team/city, the bigger sample is going to cover a larger range.
But so what? Once you throw out the terrible blogs, the ones that aren't relevant to one's interests, or the ones that are technically proficient but just not your cup of tea, there's still a whole metric crapton of other ones, likely including one that is close to exactly what you're looking for, and that degree of specialization is nigh-impossible to find affordably in the MSM. The fact that there's a ton of crap doesn't matter because it's not taking valuable column-inches away from the good stuff
Yes. The bar isn't set very high here. ESPN is a joke and much of the MSM is inane. Leitch has more than a modicum of talent, which puts ahead of much of the rest. Is he up there with the best of MSM? Of course not, but neither is most of the MSM.
Bissinger is just as hard on the MSM, so I don't think it is an us vs them thing with him.
I certainly have my RSS feeds in order, but I haven't added anything in a long time. The terrible blogs have done a good job of choking out the good ones from the link scrum, and you can't blame Costas or Bissinger for reading half a Deadspin post rather than an essay at THT.
I'm all for the power of the internet and blogging, but there's a real lack of innovation and ingenuity from even the best sports bloggers. I'm tired of not being able to distinguish one blog from the next (Primer excluded!), and hope that something changes.
The huge generalization aside, does it even matter? The goal of sportswriting isn't to prove how hip to the scene one is; it's to inform and entertain, blogging included.
A) The only thing a college degree in journalism shows is that you definitely studied the law and ethics of journalism. That's it. Going to college to major in journalism teaches you nothing else -- you don't need a college degree to learn how to research, organize facts, and assemble them into interesting paragraphs. You learn that stuff in middle school, really. I'm a former journalism major.
B) What does a lack of "experience" entail? Are you speaking generally, as in bloggers tend to be younger people while MSM tend to be older? Or is there something that needs to be gained from standing around an athlete's locker shoving a microphone under his chin, or sitting in a press box?
C) I don't think xenophobia is what you're aiming for. I'm sure you're familiar with the definition and I'm not trying to patronize you, but it means to be afraid of strangers. I highly doubt any bloggers are what amounts to being agoraphobic. The claims you are making are almost exactly what the MSM thinks about bloggers, and I don't think reinforcing these wrong stereotypes adds any intellectualism and rationality to the discussion.
D) What's with the "mom's basement" stereotype? I never got that. Just curious. Growing up, very few of my friends' basements (including mine) were even set up for recreation and when computers became popular, they were put in the family room. I've never met anyone personally who lived and hung out in a basement.
What does age and financial status have to do with anything? Since you alluded to being "out of touch," wouldn't one presume younger people to be more "in touch"? And isn't "entitlement" positively correlated with intelligence? What I mean by that is that the kids who were brought up with a lot -- a rich family with a big house, perhaps a private school, no shortage of supplies, entrance into an expensive college -- tend to have more tools to enhance their knowledge. And their parents couldn't have gotten all that money by blind luck, being stupid and getting rich anyway, so they likely imparted good values -- work ethic, intelligence valued highly, etc. -- on their kids.
I assume you're talking about the commenters, not the writers, right?
Lastly, the "ignorant" part is obviously a sweeping generalization, but I don't think you can glean a whole lot about a person's intelligence simply by the fact that they made an immature or under-researched comment. Not everyone goes on the Internet to enhance their knowledge and discuss topics intelligently as you (I'm presuming) and I do.
Buzz hasbeen (spun intended) slammed here pretty heavily after his last book which gave shots at sabertypes.
What I mean, though, is that Deadspin (which, by the way, I think is an absolute waste of time for anyone who has finished middle school) and even the good blogs aren't competitors of ESPN. They don't do the same things, so why compare them?
Saying someone acts entitled doesn't indicate they have a modicum of intelligence, just they are a whiny brat who mommy breast fed for too damn long.
It seems to me that this dumb newspaper/blogger fight is between the more pedestrian of both species. Let's leave it to them, eh?
/sips cognac
I'm all for the power of the internet and blogging, but there's a real lack of innovation and ingenuity from even the best sports bloggers.
- i'm a sports blogger who blogs about her home team
when you talk about innovation and ingenuity, like what exactly are you talkiing about? what would you want to read that is not already out there?
i'm also tired of the "mom's basement" crap - like exactly WHO are all these crazy people letting their grown sons run around the house practically nekkid and WHY are they sitting in a moldy cold damp place in their underwear anyhow?
did they really bench Pence for Cruz jr. .. .. WTF?
1) Blogs are dedicated to cruelty, dishonesty, and speed. This is pretty much a completely unsupportable assertion. And there are many more examples of blogs that aren't dedicated to these things (except maybe speed, whatever the hell that means) than there are of blogs dedicated to these things.
2) W.C. Heinz is a better writer than a Deadspin commenter. Well, that's quite a revelation. I'm sure he spent weeks investigating that. And of course, every blogger that's ever bloggity blogged is similar in style to your average Deadspin commenter, and ever sportswriter produces material of the same quality as W.C. Heinz. And what Bissinger either ignores or is too stupid to realize is that MANY PROFESSIONAL SPORTSWRITERS MAINTAIN BLOGS!
3) Deadspin's tagline is dishonest because Will is a Cardinals fan. Apparently disclosing biases is much more pernicious than hiding them. Because every sportswriter who every wrote about Barry Bonds was unbiased, and those that weren't certainly admitted it upfront.
4) He Nutpicks. Yes, as we all know, all commenters think alike and are clearly representative of all blogs across the blogoverse. Note that Costas nupticked as well. What these guys don't realize is that undoubtedly some people used to read Heinz, and Jim Murray, and Grantland Rice and think "this guy's a total moron". But they didn't have forum in which to tell the world what they thought. Now they have comment sections.
Bissinger made a fool of himself, plain and simple. And while Leitch wasn't very television savvy, his point was the right one: Blogs are a meritocracy. If a blog sucks, or if the blogger is a horrible writer, of if the information/opinion isn't interesting, people won't read it (like my blog that nobody reads). It's not like there aren't enough to choose from. Will's right. Cultivating a readership is hard work. You have to write well, you have to have interesting stuff, and you have to write A LOT. If you don't have new stuff every day, or hell, a few times a day, people don't come back. And it's not easy to come up with stuff you think people might want to read.
good point. there is a huge overlap between 'bloggers' and the 'MSM'....
I lived in my mom's attic until I was about 30. But I'm not a blogger. Not dedicated enough. The guys I knew who worked for papers didn't have much better living conditions, either. I think its the celebs in the field that make all the money.
Well, at least you're mature about it.
You missed the point. "Entitled" people have financial advantages other people don't. It's why you don't see great test scores coming out of inner cities: because there's not enough money to aid the educational process. "Entitled" students always have the best books, the best supplies, the most qualified teachers, the most education-friendly environments. Poorer schools can't read the works of many great authors because they can't afford the books; "entitled" students don't have this problem and thus are at an advantage of sorts.
How does that not correlate positively with intelligence?
Apparently you haven't spent much time with America's youth. Entitlement has nothing to do with social strata. Or at least little to do with it. It has everything to do with how much responsibility is given to the individual.
Also, while not the point you don't really mean intelligence anyway. Intelligence, has little to do with opportunity though how well developed it is has a lot to do with it. It is not the same.
did they really bench Pence for Cruz jr. .. .. WTF?
- sigh
double sigh
cooper SAID he was going to and the reporters all reported it but he ended up benching bourn for cruz jr and well, all i can say is that is too stupid for me to find words to use and believe you me i looked.
after all 100 AB is more than enough to decide whether a player is any good or not, right? and letting young players develop and learn to adjust to ML pitching is silly - why any GOOD player would hit 300 right off and never have an ofer streak or make dumb fielding mistakes right?
ahem
unless he got told to do that by smith-wade because drayton thinks this team is CHAMPIONS and cruz junior is the way to get there because he is a Proven Veteran and besides look how great he did in ST
we could have 12 guys in the bullpen and cooper STILL wouldn't know what to do with it
grumble
A journalism degree and MSM paycheck doesn't mean someone is smart enough and qualified to deliver opinions and news with an awareness of who cares, who is affected, and what it all means. Or even better, they're aware that they don't really know. But it probably means that some of them earned it, encountered something new and different on the way, and aren't complete morons. I'm full of generalizations. It's a flaw.
I definitely meant xenophobic too. Have you read Deadspin's soccer coverage? (I haven't but I hear it's Jim Rome-terrible.) I interpret the mom's basement stereotype as more of an Allegory of the Cave kind of thing. More to the point of xenophobia, I can't count the times I've seen a blogger blog about how bright the bad old sun is without ever seeing it.
baseball chick - There's nothing wrong with blogging about the home team, and it's somewhat unique in its own right. My critique about a lack of anything new was in regards to the picture-link-commentary format that is oh-so-old, and oh-so-oft executed poorly. I realize there are limitations to blogging software, but aren't things getting stale? Remember when a new, good blog would pop up every month or so? Shouldn't the crack bloggers at Fanhouse, Deadspin, wherever be trying to do something new?
Maybe it's a generational thing. When I came back from college on weekends and in the summer I lived in the basement. My parents had rented out my room.
My best friend also lived in his parents' basement from mid-high school til he finished college (he went to a commuter school). It was a lot easier to smoke pot down there than next to his parent's bed room.
I'm going to stop you right there.
Ah, but you were...history tells us so...:)
If I may make a suggestion to you, MHS, insulting someone you're attempting to have a conversation/debate with doesn't help you.
As a relatively young person (I'm a college student) who went to one of the more privileged public schools in the southeast Pennsylvania area but lived in the vicinity of three down-in-the-dumps suburban public schools, I think I have a pulse on what and what does not aid in the educational process. As only one person, I'm sure I err in some areas but I know what I've seen and heard.
You make a good point about entitlement and responsibility. I hadn't thought about that.
I had a feeling this was the case. It's been a while since I last took psychology. But you got my drift anyway. :)
Blogs are a meritocracy.
Blogs are a popularity contest.
You missed the point. "Entitled" people have financial advantages other people don't. It's why you don't see great test scores coming out of inner cities: because there's not enough money to aid the educational process. "Entitled" students always have the best books, the best supplies, the most qualified teachers, the most education-friendly environments. Poorer schools can't read the works of many great authors because they can't afford the books; "entitled" students don't have this problem and thus are at an advantage of sorts.
How does that not correlate positively with intelligence?
Oh, gawd. I really don't want to get in the middle of this, but you're badly conflating & confusing intelligence and education.
Blame the program then. Costas or the producer set up a situation for the soundbyteness and apeshitness. That's terrific.
But BTF will still be around I hope.
But intelligence can be nurtured and developed. Proper nutrition, other health issues (getting enough sleep, for example), and "working out" your brain all help, and are all more likely to be available for the "entitled" students. If you have two kids with a learning disability, but only one gets successfully diagnosed, that "entitled" kid has the chance to be more "intelligent" than his peer.
I think one of you is talking about people who feel entitled, while the other is talking about people who are entitled. While there's some overlap between the two, they really are different groups of people with different opportunities and preparedness for those opportunities. Maybe that'll help bridge the misunderstanding.
I was talking about people who act entitled, which is what I said in 68... which can actually include both groups you mentioned.
People can like whatever they want, but it's about time blogs, especially the ones most people read, start trying to improve their output instead of patting themselves on the back for being superior to clowns like Costas and Bissinger.
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