Blogs take a Beating

"I want to interject because I really feel strongly about this. I really think you’re full of shit. I think that blogs are dedicated to cruelty, dedicated to dishonesty… It is the complete dumbing down of our society.”
-Buzz Bissinger

Last night's "Costas Now" on HBO was a riveting, revealing debate on the state of Sports Media. This is a subject I have a particular interest in and was excited to watch it (Another interest of mine, race and sports, is the subject of a upcoming "Costas Now" that I am eagarly anticipating). The apex of the evening was the discussion of blogs and new media featuring Browns receiver Braylon Edwards, Author Buzz Bissinger, and Deadspin editor Will Leitch, in which Edwards, Bissinger, and Costas gang up on Leitch and tear blogs down as yellow, gutless, gossip rags. sportsonmymind, which is itself a blog, has a gleeful account of Leitch's beating here. Leitch's own [dead]spin on the night's adventure can be found here. If you don't have HBO and didn't have the chance to watch the show the recounts spell out almost completely different events and watching the thing brings you a perspective somewhere in the middle.

Make no mistake however, Leitch got his ass handed to him. Yes, his primary assailant (Bissinger) was rude and cut him off and made ludricrous, hypocritical statements, but Leitch failed to respond and got beaten down. In fact we all did. While sportsonmymind, a great site that I really enjoy, ruefully enjoyed the display they must realize that this is bad for all sports blogs. No other sports blog has achieved what Deadspin has. Like it or not, Leitch and the boys are the banner wavers for this little diversion we call posting. I was wondering when the fickle tide of the internet community's opinion would turn on Deadspin and it appears that time is now, or approaching. Deadspin, which a few years, or even months, ago was a breath of fresh air, a social revolution and a must stop site has now become under attack by the monsters it created, the people it showed the way. Leitch, while a fine writer, struggled to hold his own in the verbal debate. To read Leitch's account, he plays it off as taking the high road and letting Bissinger embarrass himself and that's partly true. Buzz, while perhaps the winner in points, earns a Pyrric victory. He took the kids to task but dated and limited himself at the same time. The truth of the matter is, as sportsonmymind reports, is that Leitch seemed scared, nervous, almost like a caricature of the people Costas and Co. think we bloggers are; pale nerds taking potshots from out of our parents' basement. I'm not going to dismiss Leitch for missing an oppurtunity to assert the relevance of blogs, but he was the victim and the victimizers were and are wrong, just plain wrong.

Bissinger says that blogs are dedicated to cruelty and dishonesty and that we dumb down the sports landscape, but he has the wrong four letter enemy. Exchange BLOG with ESPN and you've got your villain. How many things in the last year has the Worldwide Leader done that are cruel, dishonest, or idiotic? How about last week, telling Miguel Tejada to come on a show for a platonic interview (dishonest), ambush him with his own birth certificate (cruel) and then promote the spectical of his embarrasement on their website and TV shows (cruel and dishonest), on top of which, his age is utterly irrelevant (dumbing down sports viewers). Tell me how that's better or "above" posting a picture of an athlete with a bottle of bourbon and a co-ed. Besides all that, judging mainstream media by it's worst and most visible part (ESPN) is unfair to the responsible TV, radio, and newspaper men and women who do a good job and have to watch ESPN make them look bad, or steal their stories. And even still mainstream sports media provide a service, even ESPN, and that service and function is entirely separate than the one that Deadspin and blogs provide. Why old mainstays like Costas and Bissinger feel so threatened by blogs is beyond me.

To try to find that answer I point to the most telling moment of the entire show, and it wasn't even on television. During the intro, "Costas Now" showed a montage of various guests giving little quotes to tease and preview the upcoming segments and Michael Wilbon said something to the effect of "Where do these people get their opinions and facts from? Their couch? In front of the TV?" That's a real loose paraphrase but the thesis of the statement was that bloggers don't have the credentials to talk about sports. My girlfriend, who was reading and not paying a lot of attention and has little more than a passing interest and knowledge in this subject, piped up with, "Where does he get his? He's got the same information as any blogger!" I'm a fan of Michael Wilbon's but my girlfriend put him in his place. We all have TVs. We all are fans, my opinion is as good as any. Blogs, for all their faults, have provided one thing; that sports aren't resigned to the loud, the outlandish, the printed. I generally trust the people I see on TV, if they say that the White Sox relievers are going to be good this year, I take a note of that, but if you think for a moment that I believe Skip Bayless has more insight than I do, you're dreaming. I'm savvy enough, and with blogs more people are becoming as such, to tell when a "analyst" says something because he believes it, or because he wants ratings and to be "controversial." Blogs aren't here to supplant any newspapers or TV or radio stations, they supplement. But they are here to stay, even if they had a rough night last night.