Game, set, match to Mr. Steinberg...

Thanks Dan, Its about time someone at the Washington Post has come out and pointed out these flaws to Bissinger's comments and the value of blogs instead of Wilbon and Shapiro taking shots at a medium they know nothing about.

I also think its funny that Bissinger talks about blogs humiliating athletes. Friday Night Lights is a great book, but he no doubt goes out of his way to embarrass a good number of high school athletes (either promoting them as too stupid to do anything but play football, making Odessa out to be a town with no money, no hope, and nothing worth living for except high school football). These were highschool athletes he degraded, not professionals. He should take a a look in the mirror, and then go jump off a bridge (joke).

I've scoured my newspaper but I can't seem to find this Shapiro column you're talking about.

Ohhhh, it's only available online!

I'd talk about your good points, but I cant get over how great the picture at the top is.

Bully for Steinberg. (Wait, saying "bully for" something is complimentary, right?)

Just wanted to say that I'm in awe of you changing gears from "...rump roasts on Fanny Farmer" to this post.

Dan truly is the People's Champ!

Seriously though do you have any more photos of DeShawn in outrageous jerseys? My thirst for inane crap must be quenched!

I know this might not be the right venue, but I agree with Wilbon a bit on this. His main point isn't with bloggers per se, but rather because we don't know who they are, what their background is, etc. Since I know the background of Dan, Ivan Carter, Michael Lee, etc., I'm much more likely to believe their rumors, sources, and the like. The problem is that in the vastness of cyberspace, too many people don't differentiate between "the professionals" and those that are sitting in their basement and just writing whatever they want.

If Ivan Carter cites anonymous sources stating that the Wizards are in talks to trade Arenas for Dwayne Wade, it should carry much more weight than if I were to put it on my (hypothetical) blog. Unfortunately, that's not often the case.

I have no idea who or what TG is or what his background is so I am not going to be bothered with reading or responding to his comment.

"Still, Bissinger's concerns should be all of our concerns. Do we want our sports-infatuated kids to grow up reading Deadspin and Kissing Suzy Kolber (don't ask), or would we prefer them to peruse the internet or their local library to read the wonderful work of Red Smith, Shirley Povich, Jim Murray, Dan Jenkins and yes, most definitely Buzz Bissinger?" -- Leonard Shapiro, "Bissinger's Blog Bashing: Over the Top, But On Target"

Why does the argument always break down to a "us or them" mentality for MSM defenders?

Has anyone ever seen an accomplished blogger (or any for that matter) call for the obliteration of newspapers and mainstream media outlets, in favor of a blog-only world?

"Not I," said the fox.

Hear hear, Mr. Steinberg... hear hear, indeed.

TG, that's what Leitch was addressing when he said that sports blogs work within a meritocratic system.

Deadspin, PFT, The Big Lead, etc. didn't just become some of the biggest sports blogs on the internet. They worked to gain the trust of their readers to gain that status. I promise they didn't do that by passing along fake and/or unreliable information.

"I'd argue the exact opposite of Shapiro"

Always a good start.

TG- You are pointing out the problem with society (that people are lazy and otherwise inclined to believe everything they read).

The big problem with this discussion, set off by Bissinger's rant, and followed up by numerous discussions online, is that we are falling into absurd generalizations: blogs are this, print is that, etc.

What's needed is a re-set, a step back, and a descriptive overview of the issue, like, perhaps, this:

1) Licensed Journalism, represented largely (in this discussion) in the print media, is different from blogging, especially blogging by people who are not educated as journalists.
1a) Some licensed, print journalists blog.
1b) Some bloggers were educated as journalists.

2) The major, general differences between licensed journalism and blogging include, but are not limited to:
2a) Editorial process and standards
2b) Access to information
2c) Relationship with the community of readers

3) In general, one finds a wide variance in both licensed print journalism and blogging, but it could be argued that, almost by definition due to the low barrier to entry on blogging, the variance in blogging is wider.

Hence, there are cases, due to the wide variance in blogging, where some blogs do things that would very likely never be done in print. Some will evaluate those cases as "bad" or "good".

--

This would set up a conversation about how some blogs "go too far", and, when framed that way, would allow the Bissingers and the Wilbons to make a point about the things they have seen in some blogs that readers should be careful about, or, that in their opinions, should be stifled or whatnot... And then the Leitchs and the Shapiros could respond and explain why those cases are either the cost of a free world or not mainstream, or valuable in their own way or whatnot.

Wouldn't that have been a good conversation to have?

"They worked to gain the trust of their readers to gain that status."

WTF was that? Gain... gain?

I sound like Shapiro: "Obviously, a little more civility in his comments that night obviously would have gone a long way..."

Let's see how that sits with Bissinger's ass.

And Rabach's as well.

Dan, did you see this bizarre comment by Wilbon in his chat the other day? Apparently, this is all just "marketing junk."

Burke, Va.: Mike, when you say you don't read blogs, are you including the ones written by "real" reporters -- like Ivan Carter and Michael Lee's "Wizards Insider" here on the washingtonpost.com? Seems like a great place for them to give readers additional writing that they can't get column inches for in the dead tree edition...

Michael Wilbon: Those aren't blogs. That's marketing junk. They're opinionated reports that are edited by Post editors just like their stories in The Post. Their reports labeled as blogs to snare people who think they're getting something new and trendy. Please.

media people = self involved

its a funny argument when one side of the media screams to the other "you are more self -involved than me"

But this blog is slightly less self involved...

Brent,

I think you actually wrote what I was trying to say better than I did!

My problem, I guess, is that you're right, people are lazy. There are too many people out there who believe that because they saw it on the Internet, it must be true. (I'm leaving the argument that Wikipedia is an acceptable primary source for another time.)

But I don't know where the line should be drawn. Should there be some type of bloggers guild which will grant licenses to those that meet some agreed-upon standard? Should it remain a free-for-all with a let-the-reader-beware warning?

And I wasn't trying to throw all blogs in the same bin. Lots of the blogs for the Caps (for example Japer's Rink and On Frozen Blog) have information that's essentially as good as The Post. But there's no easy/effective/appropriate way to separate those (and ones such as Deadspin, The Big Lead and the like) from the rest.

That liberal media....

Wait, who is more liberal -- newspaper writers or bloggers? I need to know who to hate more.

"Michael Wilbon: Those aren't blogs. That's marketing junk. They're opinionated reports that are edited by Post editors just like their stories in The Post."

OK, as bad as some of the errors that get by the Post editors are...I refuse to believe that anyone proofreads those blogs.

That isn't meant to be a complaint about Ivan, Michael, Tarik, Svrluga or anyone else. I like the more informal tone, I'm just sayin'...

Great post.

Also, those excerpted newspaper lines have me bewildered. It's like the kid that used the infamous metaphor "John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met." grew up to become a journalist.

It has never ceased to be a good idea to check multiple sources of information for consistency and accuracy, if possible.
And people in general tend to be resistant to change, particularly when they know the change may affect them (or their livelihood).

I love how Wilbon thinks he's a traditional newspaper guy. Wilbon was a nobody beat grunt until he started

1)Having really loud personal opinions
2)Developing mancrushes on athletes
3)Hamming it up on the 'New Media' of cable TV.

Basically what bloggers do.

That said, Im not sure why bloggers like Leitch and especially Matt Ufford go on TV to defend themselves but don't just come out and say: what most of us are doing is cheap fun gossip and low-brow and its not sports journalism. There may be some great straight sportswriters in the blogoshphere but no one is reading them. People read blogs because they are tired of canned athelete quotes and the same 6 columnists hogging the swing set. With Leather isn't contributing anything of value to the world. Ands thats great, but blogs get to defensive methinks. We shouldn't even be having this discussion.
RACK ME

I truly understand the outrage of the mainstream media related to the posting of those Matt Leinart pictures on blogs. Because those pictures have no journalistic merit, obviously mainstream media outlets such as television sports news and newspaper outlets would not present such images. If blogs didn't exist and instead someone sent those images to someone at a sports news show, for example, I'm sure they would simply be ignored and not showed to the public.

What's that? Those pictures have been shown on ESPN about 10,000,000 times? Oh. Still, shame on the bloggers. Remember to tune in at 6:30 for more imagery and news content brought to us by those shameful blogs.

I don't even know what a bog is.

Mitch Albom says you bloggers especially Steinz have to show up in order to get the story. Jay Mariotti concurs.

In the future, I think people will simply gravitate towards writers they think are good. They won't classify writers via "old media" or "new media" anymore. Credibility will lie with the writer, and not with the media used to deliver the message.

the thing about the msm is that they don't tm their bff when they ttyl about things that don't apply to the ravages of rotfl with food in your mouth.

I always find it funny how some champions of the MSM tout the editorial layers any article must burst through in order to emerge into daylight as an advantage. It's called an incomprehensible bureaucracy, people, and it's not good wherever you find it.

Guess I don't see blogs and newspapers as being the same thing. In newspapers, I am able to distinguish the difference between a news article and a column. I inherently understand that the columnist is offering his or her opinion and generally have some idea of how much "inside" information that the columnist is basing the column on.
I see a blog as a virtual barroom discussion group. I assume that its mostly opinion and treat it accordingly. However, I know that the fellas over at bulletsforever.com have watched more Wizards games this year than Tony Kornheiser, so their opinion on what to do with Gilbert is just as valid as Tony's. Now if any of them said, "I just talked to Gil and he said...", I would have my doubts.But I've rarely read a blog where opinion and fact have been merged so closely that I can't tell the difference. Certainly those like Dan Steinberg who blog FOR a newspaper have to meet a completely different standard in their blog than someone like me who does not get paid nor represents a corporation does in my blog. But that seems obvious.

I don't know where else to put this complaint but the Post ran an AP article about the Magic-Pistons series with the headline "Magic even series" and Game 2 under that headline as well as pictures from game 2, only to put in paragraph 2 "Pistons lead series 2-1." This was stuff they taught me not to do in the first week of sports journalism class. Dan, get on this. Tell the "old media" to get their act together if they are going to critisize.

Wait, "The competitive fire that burns inside Kristin Erb has her wanting to be in the thick of the action as much as possible" isn't excellent?

I tie some of the Bissinger opinions to his out-and-out attack on statistical analysis in baseball, which just so happens to be prevalent in plenty of the best fan blogs. As some reporters clung to RBI and giving Bartolo Colon Cy Youngs, the blogs provided local, passionate and analytical content that wasn't provided by math-averse columnists. In both cases, Bissinger makes arguments that play on some odd mix of nostalgia, intangibles and sticks in mud.

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