Priceless moments in The Life of the Nanny:

"########, ###########, #########"

I think The Nanny makes exceptions for beastiality if it's rooted in love & not carnal need.

It took 50 years of his life and the "Costas Now" show for Buzz to realize the "danger of making sweeping generalizations." Buzz is becoming more irrelevant each time he opens his mouth.

http://sportslocker.blogspot.com/

I'd like to hear a conversation between Pat Jordan and Buzz Bissinger. It would probably make The Big Lebowski sound like Davey and Goliath.

Buzz and Costas and others of the like try to portray the internet as one single voice or perspective, one of lower intelligence and vulgarity - in fact there is a tremendous range of voices and perspectives online. We know American tv only has a few owners with overlapping business interests. On the internet, those voices are only a tiny subsection. Buzz seems to start to understand that, but mostly it is the same 'mean what I said but sorry for the language' garbage.

It seems to me that in the limited exposure I have had reading/listening to Buzz that this kind of explosion is not that uncommon. I seem to remember a post here a couple of years ago about his run in on a radio show, I think in Atlanta where he also made an ass out of himself.

I doubt W. C. Heinz would be blogging. My educated guess is that he would be writing for a newspaper or a magazine, because some people actually still do that. And he would have been discovered during his college days or some days or somewhere.

Yes, and as we all know quite well, it's impossible to both write for a newspaper AND maintain a blog. Especially in college, becasuse college students really don't have any free time whatsoever. You must do one or the other, but not both.

I mean, good lord, how did Bissinger not make that connection? The example given to him was listed as "K.C. Star Columnist Joe Posnanski". Don't most major (and minor) dailies maintain a blog section attached to the sports area of it's online publication these days? Sometimes that's where a lot of the best information is found.

I seem to remember a post here a couple of years ago about his run in on a radio show, I think in Atlanta where he also made an ass out of himself.

Boog Sciambi post.

Yes, and as we all know quite well, it's impossible to both write for a newspaper AND maintain a blog.

plus find room in your mother's basement

Shredder is absolutely correct. How does someone like Bissinger not understand that the NY Times has sports blogs on their own website? When he spews his venom at "Bloggers" doesn't he realize that he's probably insulting colleagues and fellow Journalists. It's commendable that he's apologizing for his behavior on the Costas show, but his narrow view and simplistic take on this one subject makes me not want to read any of his writings.

but his narrow view and simplistic take on this one subject makes me not want to read any of his writings.

I suppose when you read a lengthy post on a fairly well-trod site about your obsession with ####### horses, it's probably hard to rid yoursel of some of your negative views of bloggers.

Hey, f*#%o, he likes to call it "interspecies erotica".

###########,

This is a new one on me. Heard "#########" a lot.

This is a new one on me. Heard "#########" a lot.

I think ########### may be a kind of compliment. I'm a city guy and horses kind of spook me. No way I'd have the courage to try to screw one. Hats off to the guys who will risk a swift kick from a mare in that region of the body.

Bizzinger's apology seems really insincere. Note that, in his own words, he doesn't start to regret what he did until his wife told me he looked like a jackass. Following the taping, right after he had screamed and cursed at Leitch in front of millions of people, he said he had no regrets and that people seemed supportive. So, he doesn't really feel bad about being profane or cruel, he feels bad that people think he's an old fool.

Buzz seems to start to understand that, but mostly it is the same 'mean what I said but sorry for the language' garbage.

I disagree. It sounds like he has a natural distrust of blogs that he can't entirely get over, but the apology seems sincere and also very self-aware.

Shredder is absolutely correct. How does someone like Bissinger not understand that the NY Times has sports blogs on their own website? When he spews his venom at "Bloggers" doesn't he realize that he's probably insulting colleagues and fellow Journalists.

I doubt that very many journalists who maintain a blog on the their newspaper's site consider themselves bloggers first, second, or last.

Did you say "sweet as sugar" or "Swedish hooker"?

I doubt that very many journalists who maintain a blog on the their newspaper's site consider themselves bloggers first, second, or last.

at the same time, guys like poz are bloggers to a great extent. as are insideresque types like John Sickles at minorleagueball.com. i'm guessing it's a generational disconnect, but it really shouldn't be hard to realize that 1) blogs aren't homogenous and 2) comments do not equal the bloggers viewpoints. and bissinger was probably sad when his lover died on the track down in kentucky. *sheds a tear* you just don't find that type of love among people anymore.

edit: i know this will never happen, but i would go wild with happiness if an admin of the site edited the nanny every few months to add and remove certain creative cusses from the filter. it'd be like a race every few fortnights to figure out if "####### enthusiast" would get nannied or if "monkey felcher" still worked.

I doubt that very many journalists who maintain a blog on the their newspaper's site consider themselves bloggers first, second, or last.

Why? Why can't someone consider himself a journalist AND a blogger, in whatever order they wish. Sorry to break this to you, but if you maintain a blog regularly, you're a blogger, whether you like it or not. It's not a term of art.

It's like saying "I know Joe Reporter hosts a radio show, but I doubt he considers himself a radio show host." Who gives a crap what they consider themselves? They blog. They're bloggers.

Why? Why can't someone consider himself a journalist AND a blogger, in whatever order they wish. Sorry to break this to you, but if you maintain a blog regularly, you're a blogger, whether you like it or not. It's not a term of art.

It's like saying "I know Joe Reporter hosts a radio show, but I doubt he considers himself a radio show host." Who gives a crap what they consider themselves? They blog. They're bloggers.

I don't disagree with you. I'm just saying that I don't think most of those bloggers, JoePo notwithstanding, consider themselves bloggers, nor would they be heartbroken if their publication no longer wanted them to keep up a blog.

I'm just saying that I don't think most of those bloggers, JoePo notwithstanding, consider themselves bloggers, nor would they be heartbroken if their publication no longer wanted them to keep up a blog.

And you base this on what, exactly? In the first thread on this, I linked to two guys that write are beat writers for the L.A. Daily News (Brian Dohn - UCLA, and Rich Hammond - L.A. Kings). Now, maybe they're lying, but both say they love the format. Dohn puts out about six or seven posts every week in which he does nothing but answer questions. The blogs serve almost as staging areas for their main stories.

My sense is they enjoy having an outlet where they can "keep up with the Joneses" so to speak. In the era of 24 hour ESPN news and other online outlets, they can still compete to break stories. If something happens at 5:00 at night, they don't have to wait until 12 hours later to have their story hit the public. And they have an outlet for little tidbits that fans find interesting, but otherwise wouldn't make it into the limited inches of a newspaper, like observations from a practice session.

They might not consider themselves the "smear-merchants" that most people like Bissinger assume bloggers to be, but they're most certainly "bloggers", and they certainly don't in any way make it seem like a chore foisted on them by their editors. I get them impression that they enjoy writing for an audience. This gives them a chance to do that more. That's my anecdotal evidence. I'd love to hear yours.

Shredder, I don't know why this has gotten you so riled up!

Newspapers and other MSM outlets didn't adopt the blog format for some time, and often times the format seems forced. Sure, some writers do a really great job with it. Susan Slusser, who I think is a really great beat reporter, uses the blog pretty much only for breaking news. Other contributors to that blog mostly ask questions of the readers or link to other A's sites that have interesting posts. By and large, the format is redundant and is only really useful for the breaking news.

Didn't ESPN rebrand their columns as "blogs"? I don't read 'em because they're behind the wall, but are they similar to other sports blogs, with a comments section and lots of links, or are they mostly notes columns?

Anyhow, I'm not certain that my observation is correct, clearly you have had the opposite experience.

When Bissinger talks about "bloggers," he isn't talking about every single person that maintains a blog. He is talking about amateurs that use blogs as their primary or only medium. It might be a stupid distinction and a lazy use of vocabulary but at the same time I think most people understand that when he says "bloggers" that is the group of people he is indicating.

Shredder, I don't know why this has gotten you so riled up!

Because I don't like it when people make a lame throwaway comment with nothing to back it up. Not that you do that all the time or anything, but when someone writes something, with no evidence proffered, that runs directly counter to my own experience, I'd like to know where that position is coming from.

Didn't ESPN rebrand their columns as "blogs"? I don't read 'em because they're behind the wall, but are they similar to other sports blogs, with a comments section and lots of links, or are they mostly notes columns?

Which should be a lesson to people like Bissinger that there really isn't that much difference between what "real writers" do and what some "bloggers" do.

When Bissinger talks about "bloggers," he isn't talking about every single person that maintains a blog. He is talking about amateurs that use blogs as their primary or only medium.

But even that's a poor distinction. First of all, how do segregate amateur from professional? Sure, most bloggers don't make money, but some are very successful. Will Leitch is a professional writer. He's written a few books. And even if we could make that determination, there are many "amateur" bloggers who are very good writers and produce great material. I think what he's talking about are tabloid-type bloggers, or people write solely to generate negative publicity for those whom they write about. Even then, he needed to pick out comments to "prove" his point.

It might be a stupid distinction and a lazy use of vocabulary but at the same time I think most people understand that when he says "bloggers" that is the group of people he is indicating.

A lazy use of vocabulary is not exactly a hallmark of Buzz Bissinger.

Not that you do that all the time or anything, but when someone writes something, with no evidence proffered, that runs directly counter to my own experience, I'd like to know where that position is coming from.

Fair enough. I guess I just struck a nerve.

Now, maybe they're lying, but both say they love the format. Dohn puts out about six or seven posts every week in which he does nothing but answer questions. The blogs serve almost as staging areas for their main stories.

You are talking about the new guard (new doesn't necessartily mean young). Unfortunately, the old guard still exists, and it still represents the "power". Things seem to be changing as the old guards' base is rapidly deterioriating, but for now, the old guard still has the muscle.

Who gives a crap what they consider themselves? quote]

They do. They (most of them anyway) went to journalism school and work in the journalism industry. Almost all of them didn't (and won't get any time in the near future) get their foot in the door through blogging. If they are interviewing for a "big" job, the people doing the interviewing want to see a hell of a lot more than blog entries or "blogger" on the resume. Sure, it is a semantical distinction, but a distinction nonetheless -- and that distinction trandscends the industry. A guy is more likely to pick up a chick at a bar by saying he is is a journalist or reporter than a blogger.

Of course, they can call themselves anything they want, but the changing industry has dictated that many of them blog. For many, that is an exciting new forum that allows their voice to be heard beyond copy. For other, it is an odious task they feel is beneath them. For some, attacking blogs is attacking change. Bissinger is a rather strange case -- he uses the tactics of those attacking change, but he is really attacking the decline of writing skills. For some odd reason, he has aaigned the face of the enemy to blogs.

Wow, I don't know anything about 'The Big Lead', but that interviewer did not pull any punches with those questions.

#10: "When he spews his venom at "Bloggers" doesn't he realize that he's probably insulting colleagues and fellow Journalists."

And what's funny about that is he basically says that Poz only disagreed with Bissinger's stance on the show so as not to piss off his readers because he's a blogger himself now. Bissinger's response to that question was moronic through and through.

From #5: "Buzz and Costas and others of the like try to portray the internet as one single voice or perspective, one of lower intelligence and vulgarity" to #24: "When Bissinger talks about "bloggers," he isn't talking about every single person that maintains a blog. He is talking about amateurs that use blogs as their primary or only medium"

Basically he just wants to define out whatever doesn't fit the stereotype he wants to feed. If they have a job in MSM, they're disqualified in his mind from being termed "bloggers" no matter what else they do. If they're not obscene and vulgar, or if they use evidence and logic to support well-reasoned and researched claims, they're not bloggers regardless. If they don't live in their mothers' basements, etc. Shredder's (valid) points be damned. That way he can't be wrong.

I thought Bissinger's apology seemed sincere and well thought-out, but it also didn't make him look any less like a tool in my eyes. He grants that society as a whole is getting more dumbed-down and vulgar but still seems to think of "bloggers" as the enemy in that regard. He criticizes vicious media personalities for being attention-grabbing gasbags but when it comes to his own "vile beyond belief" rampage against Leitch says only it sprang from passion. You don't think he knows how many more people are saying his name today than they were last week?

And then his defense of LaRussa is simply despicable. I don't think any more highly of Bissinger than I did before all the apologizing. In fact, I wouldn't dismiss as a possibility that it was his intention all along to go way over the top on Costas, come to his senses he cools off and his wife tells him he was a jackass, and give contrite interviews to every internet media outlet that came calling.

And then his defense of LaRussa is simply despicable.

Seriously? Despicable? LaRussa's alcohol problems surely can't be ignored, but are you really implying that Tony LaRussa is bad enough a person to not warrant a defense of his mistakes? Like Bissinger said, LaRussa is an amiable enough guy with fans and puts a lot of work and money into that ARF thing. No, Tony LaRussa isn't a model citizen by any means, but he's not nearly the kind of lowlife to whom a defense would be "despicable." That's an absurd implication.


One thing that I imagine gets at guys like Bissinger is that they more or less do all this work as journalists to fuel the medium that's taking them down. Most blogs rarely, if ever, do any actual reporting of their own. The top story on Deadspin right now is about a horse that went ballistic at a horse show in England. Deadspin links to another blog writing about it, FanIQ, where you can finally find the actual story which spawned the post, written by the BBC. My guess is that a rather large number of people didn't bother going through that process to get the original BBC article.

Now I'm not trying to be anti-blog here, but it just doesn't come as a surprise to me that a lot of traditional journalists hold a kind of contempt for what they see as most blogs- typified in their minds probably by Deadspin and the other sites of that ilk.

but are you really implying that Tony LaRussa is bad enough a person to not warrant a defense of his mistakes

Not at all. The idea of defending TLR isn't despicable, I found the defense itself to be despicable: holding TLR responsible for his players is ridiculous, there's no possible connection between TLR's possible drinking problem and a culture of drinking on the team, LaRussa's already been held accountable for his mistakes so criticizing him for them is off-limits, he gets a pass because of his philanthropy. The way Bissinger went about defending LaRussa, and the arguments he made, are what I take issue with.

Not at all. The idea of defending TLR isn't despicable, I found the defense itself to be despicable: holding TLR responsible for his players is ridiculous, there's no possible connection between TLR's possible drinking problem and a culture of drinking on the team, LaRussa's already been held accountable for his mistakes so criticizing him for them is off-limits, he gets a pass because of his philanthropy. The way Bissinger went about defending LaRussa, and the arguments he made, are what I take issue with.

Ah ah. My mistake then. Apologies.

No, I should have phrased it better.

Most blogs rarely, if ever, do any actual reporting of their own.

Would this be the 'following Brittney Spears around' reporting or the 'simply report what the White House tells you without challenge' reporting?

Would this be the 'following Brittney Spears around' reporting or the 'simply report what the White House tells you without challenge' reporting?

I never said anything about the quality of the mainstream media's reporting. By and large I think it's rather crappy, yeah. But they do report firsthand, unlike most blogs, which was my only point. That I can see where the frustration comes from when the reporting they do fuels the medium that's slowly replacing them. I don't necessarily agree with it (if they reported better they probably wouldn't be getting marginalized so much), but I can understand where it comes from.

Would this be the 'following Brittney Spears around' reporting or the 'simply report what the White House tells you without challenge' reporting?

Depends. Are you looking for a job at the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times?

if "monkey felcher" still worked.

Alpheus Felch was a great governor of Michigan, responsible for moving the capitol to Lansing. There's a town
in the UP named after him and a mountain range rich in iron ore.

What kind of felch guzzling swine would ban that?

[H]e basically says that Poz only disagreed with Bissinger's stance on the show so as not to piss off his readers because he's a blogger himself

Ockham's Razor implies a simpler explanation.

But they do report firsthand, unlike most blogs, which was my only point. That I can see where the frustration comes from when the reporting they do fuels the medium that's slowly replacing them.

Really? It always seems the mainstream media is late reporting important news. Take the WTO as an example, which hit every other country in the world and led to gigantic protests before the U.S. Mainstream Media reported it. Warrantless wiretapping and telecoms involvement, again comes from internet first. That America has by far the highest prison population is the world, over 20% more than any other country - is known all over, except our mainstream media, until the NY Times finally reported it. The entire world and many business publications knew and reported that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, they had been decimated by years of sanctions, but the mainstream media stood its ignorant ground. America spends more on military than rest of world combined, but the 6 companies that own 99% of the media make profit from that, so they don't report it. Let's not even get into science information.
American mainstream media is simply not a good place to get accurate info anymore.

Isn't Buzz a columnist? Does he really go to the press box or locker rooms anymore?