Mmmmm, More Navel-Gazing
A story in the L.A. Times has been making the rounds today, and as someone who occupies an interesting place in this whole MSM-blogger blood feud (not that I’m influential in any way, but just that I come from a MSM background and have embraced the whole blog revolution), I felt the need to chime in.
Caveat: I’m about to be a big hypocrite, and I’m OK with that I think. Generally, I can’t stand these kind of stories, because I don’t think anyone who reads this site for pleasure and doesn’t have a blog gives a shit about bloggers, MSM personalities or their petty in-fighting., and yet here I am contributing to the swirl.
The original article, by David Wharton, was ridiculous. It basically claimed that the “Wild West” days of the sports blogosphere are coming to a close, which is true in a way and not true in others, but then oddly Wharton tried to credit Buzz Bissinger’s insane rant on CostasNow and the bloggers with supposed copy editors at MSM outlets for the higher level in discourse.
Mistake No. 1: Wharton giving credit where it isn’t due — to the established media. Let’s ignore the fact that blogs are really just a medium for a second and focus on the sports blog establishment that exists. I do think that establishment is beginning to feel the weight of more responsibility. We’ve seen a few of the big anonymous bloggers coming out of the closet now, and being a believer in free market economics, I think this is mostly because of money. As the big blogs continue to grow and gain wider readership, there is more to lose, whether it’s in the way of credibility or a lawsuit. As for Buzz Bissinger, he clearly doesn’t know shit about blogs and I can’t see any blogger putting much stock into what he said.
The Big Lead’s Jason McIntyre then made waves with his comments in the article which seemed to feed into Wharton’s thesis. McIntyre said he decided not to run with a rumor about Kobe Bryant’s infidelity posted by TheDirty.com, a site which proudly proclaims that postings may contain “inaccurate or erroneous” information. (Lovely, by the way.) Where McIntyre really pissed a lot of people off was giving Bissinger credit for anything, saying “the initial reaction was ‘Buzz is a lunatic’. “After that, people calmed down, listened to what he said and thought, ‘You know, maybe we should clean up our act a little bit.’”
Mistake No. 2: McIntyre giving Buzz any credit whatsoever, pretty much covered that above. He did land the first interview with Bissinger after his eruption on CostasNow, so it makes you wonder, but I suspect McIntyre got caught up in the interview more than anything else.
Then came the backlash. Dan Shanoff proclaimed “who the hell deputized Jason McIntyre to speak on behalf of bloggers?” Will Leitch, in his last week at Deadspin and the guy who took Bissinger’s assault, said “Wait … Jason .. you used to run with the first rumor you heard? But seriously: If you have a vision for a site, don’t you have to just follow through with it? Why would you change your vision for a site just because more people are reading it? Archives don’t go away, you know; the stuff you wrote two years ago is still hanging around.” And there’s plenty more of this stuff to be found at Kissing Suzy Kolber and The Big Lead and Mister Irrelevant.
Mistake No. 3: Missing the forest for the trees. In the rush to chide McIntyre for trading sides or whatever and in the rush to take the latest potshot at newspapers isn’t everyone missing the point. What the fuck is wrong with a little accountability? A little editorial responsibility? A little accuracy? If McIntyre is saying he’s more careful with what he runs now, I say great, I say finally, I say this is the future for many of the big blogs (maybe not ones like KSK that traffic in humor, but you get my drift). I don’t have a problem with running pictures of Matt Leinart doing a beer bong, what I do have a problem with is intimating that this was somehow interfering with his offseason workout plan. Leitch didn’t know that, and I’m sure he was going for a pithy headline more than anything else, but that was still a bullshit way to frame the post.
Leitch is right about many things, and he’s a smart guy. A blog CAN be anything you want it to be, and the beauty of the sports blogosphere is that it’s almost entirely a meritocracy, but if you’re Deadspin or The Big Lead or one of the other big blogs that tries to play journalist at times, accuracy and accountability should absolutely be a part of the equation.
That’s where Leitch loses me. Why is TBL changing his editorial practices for the better a bad thing?