Costas Now Town Hall Meeting Notes: Mitch Albom on Ethics; Will Leitch’s Spin Left for Dead
April 30, 2008
About a month ago a producer from HBO’s “Costas Now” emailed me wanting to discuss my feeling about sports, race, and the Internet’s role as a sports medium. A few days later I received her call. She told me that HBO was preparing to hold a live town hall meeting but that the topics had not yet been chosen so she was calling some mainstream and Internet sportswriters and columnists to gather ideas for the upcoming show. We delved into the prescribed topics and more for our 30 minutes, or so, of conversation.
At the end of our talk she thanked me, and of the portion of our conversation that revolved around race she said, “We could do an entire show on race and sports.” And sure enough, at the end of the town hall meeting Bob Costas said that later this year another live broadcast would air solely devoted to —– race and sports.
I’m honored to have been among the many sportswriters involved in helping in some small way to shaping Tuesday night’s meeting and the conversation that will take place later this year during the next “Costas Now” town hall meeting.
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These days the televised “town hall meeting” is an excuse to trot out some big names across diffuse fields in the hope of gaining a broad demographic captive audience. But for 90 minutes Tuesday night Bob Costas moderated a generally superb effort by HBO to attempt to elucidate the often contentious and tenuous relationship between athlete and the media.
However, like all live efforts of this sort there was good, bad, and ugly. And here are the notes to prove it.
The show was broken down into five distinct segments. Segment One: Sports Talk Radio. Guests: Chris Russo, co-host Mike and the Mad Dog radio show; Michael Strahan of the New York Giants; Mitch Albom, columnist Detroit Free Press.
Russo attempted to defend sports talk radio by splitting it into credible shows and those which will do anything for ratings. Strahan lets the audience know that he has not spoken to Russo or his co-host Mike Francesa after Strahan filled in for another special guest and the two jocks sweet-talked him on air, but dissed him as soon as he left the show. From Strahan’s side, all radio shows exist only to get ratings and make a dollar for their stations and will do anything to achieve that goal. Albom explained the difference in ethical responsibilities between print journalists and radio jocks; that he is bound by a code of ethics, whereas Russo and his ilk are not.
However, what was left out of this discussion was the fact that Albom was caught red-handed with his hands in the fiction jar while writing about Michigan State’s participation in the 2005 Final Four. Albom pre-wrote and then submitted an article about events that never occurred. The piece, printed April 3, in part told of two former Spartan players’ experiences down to what they wore. Albom actually acquired quotes from them. Problem was, the players changed their plans and did not attend the game. Albom was suspended by his employers at the Detroit Free Press for his efforts.
Overall the segment was illuminating as Strahan and Albom reduced the radio show genre to its basest elements: controversy and titillation. And Russo, in the end, could barely disagree.
Segment Two: The Internet and the Impact of Bloggers. Guests: Braylon Edwards of the Cleveland Browns; Will Leitch creator of Deadspin; Pulitzer Prize-winning (investigative journalism) and author of Friday Night Lights, Buzz Bissinger.
Edwards was as understated as Bissinger was outspoken as Leitch was —– twitchy and nervous.
Leitch defended Deadspin with the following:
“If something is true and something is valid and something is worthwhile doing, I will do it. But I think that gets confused sometimes with, okay what can I dig up on somebody. That’s not really it at all. It’s a matter of - if something is newsworthy enough it’s will be covered. And sometimes those things are not necessarily uhhhh, ‘PG.’”
And defended his method of writing:
“Every time someone does something new or something a little different everyone’s like, ‘that’s not really journalism, that’s not really what we do - but no, it’s just not what you do.”
Costas called Leitch’s penchant for depicting athletes in as negative a light as possible as:
“The reasonable criticism [of the worst of the sports blogsphere] is of the tone of gratuitous pot shots and “mean-spirited abuse. That’s the reasonable criticism.”
Bissinger followed this with the statement of the evening:
“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.”
Bissinger then told of Leitch’s taking a rumor item from Robin Leach’s blog about Tony Romo and reporting it as fact.
Though Leitch speaks as quickly as an MLB player after having ingested a few too many greenies, his outsized and overblown ego was deflated by Bissinger’s blunt descriptions of the juvenile snark that is the hallmark of Leitch’s website.
Costas then spoke directly to Leitch and Deadspin:
There are a number of sports blogs that are well-written, make good points, are insightful, and are funny. But there’s a very large percentage where the quality is poor and the tone is abusive.
Not realizing that Costas was reiterating Bissinger’s feelings and his own earlier statement and that Costas was directing his words towards Deadspin, Leitch responded thusly:
“And frankly those are the ones that are most likely not read.”
Oops. At 10 million page views a month Deadspin has a huge audience that is taken with “dumbed down” writing and lowbrow humor.
Costas presented Leitch with the comments from one of his readers about the dismissal from ESPN of NFL analyst Sean Salisbury - to illustrate the mentality of his readership and that Leitch condones this behavior - that, in part read, “Good riddance f@#k face. So long you fetus-faced windbag…” Leitch laughed at the comment, then quickly realized his gross mistake and retorted weakly:
“Those are comments. Okay, seriously (as if Costas was somehow joking). We can’t really differentiate between someone that writes the blog and the random people that comment afterwards.”
Costas countered:
“However, the tone that’s established affects the post.”
From that moment the downhill slide for Leitch quickened. Costas asked Edwards for his feelings on the photos of Matt Leinart drinking at an outdoor party that surfaced and appeared prominently on Deadspin:
“I definitely have a problem with that…. The general headline is, ‘Is Matt Leinart working hard enough in the offseason?’ It doesn’t say what day this party took place. It could have been a Friday. It could have been a Saturday. It doesn’t talk about what he did Monday through Friday. Second of all, it was at his house.”
Costas then asked Leitch if he would “go through someone’s garbage” to find negative material to use on his website
Leitch responded weakly:
Obviously, it’s a case-by-case thing. Actually these aren’t in anyone’s garbage they’re on their Facebook page, they’re on their MySpace page.”
But Will, searching Facebook and MySpace for photos such as these the equivalent of going through someone’s garbage.
Bissinger then leaned far back in his chair and verbally side-swiped Leitch in the following exchange:
Bissinger: Isn’t that the perception that you’re trying to give your audience; that all these guys do is f@%k around?
Leitch: No
Bissinger: Then why do you post it on your site?
Leitch: Because they’re real human beings -
Bissinger: Because it’s news?
Leitch: Certainly I think you can argue about the Leinart thing being news, But also if you sit and look at this and you have the idea like, okay - if you look at that picture of Matt Leinart I can’t imagine a reasonable human being, being like, ‘You know what I always like Matt Leinart, I always enjoyed his football playing, but now that I know he does a beer bong I no longer can cheer for this guy.’
Bissinger (sarcastically): So you put it on there because it makes him look human?
Leitch: It’s also funny.
Bissinger: I may be over 50 but I’m not that stupid.
Leitch: Of course it’s funny.
Bissinger: You did it to humiliate him.
Leitch: Oh, come on.
Bissinger: Oh come on my ass.
Edwards: I agree, I agree (crowd claps).
Then of the future Bissinger had this to say about what his 16-year old son will read on the Internet:
What’s he’s going to read is going to be glib, it’s going to be profane, it’s going to be quick, and it’s often going to be inaccurate. It’s a generalization. I think there are some good blogs out there but they’re few and far between and I think the quality of the writing is despicable and yes, I say this as a writer who spent 40 years of my life trying to perfect the craft.
And to end the segment Bissinger followed with:
What you’re trying to say is I don’t want facts to get in my way, so I’m going to sit in my little room and I’m going to give this nebulous fan’s voice and —- I just don’t know where you’re coming from except that you are perpetuating the future and I think the future in hands of guys like you is really, really going to dumb us down to a degree that I don’t know if we can recover.
Previous to this segment mainstream sportswriter often referred to Deadspin when talking about the best writing the sports blogsphere portion of the Internet has to offer. However, with the end of that segment, it also ended the possibility of any mainstream sportswriter ever again mentioning Deadspin in a positive light, or as some sort of beacon of Internet writing.
(Check back later in the day for my notes on the remaining three segments listed below.)
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Segment Three: Sports Television. Guests: Dan Patrick, writer Sports Illustrated; Joe Buck, Fox Sports play-by-play commentator; Mike Tirico, ESPN golf analyst.
Segment Four: Athletes and the Media. Guests: John McEnroe, former tennis great and tennis analyst; New York Times columnist Selena Roberts; Tiki Barber NBC football analyst and former New York Giants running back
Segment Five: A discussion on race. Michael Wilbon, Washington Post columnist and television show co-host; Chris Carter, former NFL wide receiver and HBO football analyst; Jason Whitlock, columnist Kansas City Star and Fox Sports.
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47 Responses to “Costas Now Town Hall Meeting Notes: Mitch Albom on Ethics; Will Leitch’s Spin Left for Dead”
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“But Will, searching Facebook and MySpace for photos such as these the equivalent of going through someone’s garbage.”
Actually, it isn’t. When people–including athletes–post photos to their Facebook and MySpace pages, they’re aware that these could be viewed by anyone. These are public presentations of themselves. That’s how they choose to be viewed by outsiders.
I’m not always a fan of Deadspin, but I think you’re being a little unfair to him here. (NB: I didn’t watch the show last night.)
I like Will Leitch, he’s a nice guy, but… he’s not a good “arguer”. He was a willing sacrificial lamb for these guys, who were going to eat him up and make blogging in general seem like it has no value.
Out of curiosity, does this argument occur in any other industry other than sports? Do music blogs get attacked by the music industry? Do political blogs get attacked by the political newspapers?
Then there is this nugget:
What’s he’s going to read is going to be glib, it’s going to be profane, it’s going to be quick, and it’s often going to be inaccurate. It’s a generalization. I think there are some good blogs out there but they’re few and far between and I think the quality of the writing is despicable and yes, I say this as a writer who spent 40 years of my life trying to perfect the craft.
I actually agree to a degree - that’s what a lot of blogs are. Profane, glib, short posts with lots of snark. But here’s my question: How is that any different than the sportsradio media? What makes sports reporters tolerate the radio guys who dominate that medium, guys who are often as glib and uninformed as any blogger (and often with the same level of “training”, too), yet get so mad at the guys who have taken over this new medium, the blogsphere? If bloggers sold themselves as the new age version of sportsradio, instead of allowing themselves to be pigeonholed as Joe Wannabe Reporter, they might be able to better withstand this criticism.
Which is not to say that there aren’t great bloggers (D-Wil, for example) who do genuine reporting. The same is true of radio. On sports radio, there are some good, informative shows; there are some that just repeat the news; and there are lots that try to be “entertaining” and “funny”, to pump up ratings, all while dumbing down their audience, and engaging in generalizations about athletes. Hmm. Maybe Deadspin is just the new age version of Mike & the Mad Dog show?…
Sorry Charlie, but I’m going to have to disagree with you about the Facebook/Myspace pics. I do occasionally use candid photos of athletes posted to public photo-sharing sites in my blogs. But I have a few rules. I try to never post a picture that can ruin an athlete’s reputation if taken out of context. For example, I came across a photo of player X with a beer in his hand, with his arm around some teenager at a party. However, player X has a reputation as a good person, and the hug and beer by themselves were not that inappropriate. For all I know, it’s a neighborhood cook-out, and player X is just relaxing with family friends. So I thought it best not to post that picture. I’m not here to bring down athletes, and I don’t want some gossip site running with that picture to call player X a drunken groupie hunter.
But when it comes to Facebook and Myspace, I try to not use a photo at all. Those sites are done for people’s friends. It’s as if I’m egging your house because I don’t like the Christmas ornaments you put up, and then weakly arguing “But the ornaments were there! In front of everyone!” Yeah…but they were on MY property! I once came across some pictures of a female athlete on Myspace that were a little racy, and again, it was a pretty easy decision. She was too young to know better; why embarrass her? etc.
“What’s he’s going to read is going to be glib, it’s going to be profane, it’s going to be quick, and it’s often going to be inaccurate. It’s a generalization. ”
Was he talking about the transcript of the show, because that statement applies to Buzz’s appearance. Was he trying to be ironic when he said Will was full of shit? He completely embodied that which he was against. But Will was too nervy to stand up to him.
And can we stop taking sports journalism so seriously? Costas comparing Watergate, WWII, and the Masters was egregious at best.
Sportwriters take themselves way too seriously. Most of them are just as bad at the bloggers.
Bissinger is such a hypocrite. I wont even get into it. Journalists need to look at their own medium and realize that they do the exact same things that Bissinger is accusing Leitch of doing.
And I have to agree with Diallo, all these sports journalists crying foul sounds more like a jealous defensive outburst towards a new medium than it does someone standing up for the sanctity of their profession.
I’d buy Bissinger’s argument if most of the mainstream sports media weren’t as interested in the tabloid fluff and police blotter around athletes — and jumping out to conclusions on it at all times. If Leitch had passed on the Leinart photos, the Arizona Republic would probably write about them, just not show the photos — and everyone else would have gone to find them anyway.
I enjoy Deadspin myself, and the reason Bissinger and Costas are so particularly hostile to blogs are because, well, they see their medium being sucked away. (I don’t believe this. Good newspapers and good writers will always have a place.) It’s amusing to me that both men cite abusive tone and profanity, as if the mainstream world of sports writing has not been sullied by such things. Despite the inability of print columnists to use words such as “fuck”, the treatment of Barry Bonds and many other athletes who do not toe the media line by big-time columnists could have been described perfectly as “abusive in tone” and “profane.”
I’m with Diallo and Big Man on this: ultimately, Bissinger and Costas take their discipline much, much too seriously.
Obviously, you have issues with Deadspin, and that is fine. It’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. But don’t use your problems with Deadspin as means of validating Bissinger’s point. Because, I’m sorry, he’s talking about you as well.
Bissinger’s problems have nothing to do with Big Balls Drew or whatever he called him. It has to do with power and access and the fact that the blogosphere in general is taking away Buzz Bissinger’s right to be the final authority on all things sport. Deadspin is convenient because it gave him a club to use to beat on all bloggers. (Of course, he conveniently forgot the difference between posts and comments to create the club but whatever).
And I hate the idea that snarky or juvenile automatically equates to dumb. I find the comments on Deadspin to be some of the wittiest, cleverest things written on the net. They just happen to be about Jeff Reed’s nipples.
Finally, the egging of the house analogy is simply horrible. If post drunk pictures of myself on the community bulletin board at the local Piggly Wiggly, I don’t have a right to get angry when my neighbors pass those around in church.
Look, I think all the allegations leveled against Deadspin were correct. I just think the people making the complaints are just as guilty. I’m not defending Deadspin, and after hearing Will Leitch on NPR I think it’s obvious that he wants to reap rewards without taking on responsibilities. But, the sports media is not in a position to chastise anyone. ever.
MCBias, I think that’s a pretty weak analogy (the egging). Some people put up Facebook and MySpace pages for their friends, but others–often athletes–put them up as part of the public persona they’re creating. Plus, what are the examples of Deadspin ruining the reputations of athletes? The example that comes to my mind, the rumor they posted of Albert Pujols being linked to HGH, they corrected multiple times.
Also, I don’t think it helps that Leitch (whose blog I like) doesn’t do tv interviews well. That’s not his medium. (Ironically, the person who came off best in that entire segment was Braylon Edwards; Bissenger’s an incredibly talented writer but came off as an ignorant asshole.)
And I think Myron has a great point: Deadspin has come to represent the blogosphere for a lot of journalists, and they cherry-pick the worst examples of commenters (they often select from commenters and not the blog authors) to demonstrate that blogs are evil, dangerous, etc. And when journalists like Costas say that there are well-written blogs, they aren’t thinking of any sites in particular; they’re using that as a way to say, “Well, I’m not against blogs, but blogs like Deadspin are lowering the level of discourse.” Unfortunately, a) Costas probably hasn’t looked frequently at blogs in general or Deadspin in particular, and b) blogs aren’t competing with journalism.
Has anyone heard Mitch Albom on his daily radio show? And he has the nerve to talk about ethical responsibilities.
Thank you for your thoughtful response to the this segment, as I watched it I kept expecting Will to say something along the lines of what SML had in his comment. Deadspin is akin to a tabloid with opinion pieces sprinkled in and how is it any different from the vast majority of sports radio shows and the argument shows that are so prevalent on television now. It is successful in what it is and I enjoy the majority of post on it but there are also sports blogs out there that deal with facts and nuance that do not break stories down to the lowest common denominator. Deadspin can not be continually brought forth as the banner page of what sports blogging is, why not Shanoff, why not Dwill, why not TrueHoop, why not Kelly Dwyer or MJD.
I would argue that the blogosphere really can’t be better represented than by the FireJoeMorgan crowd. They are everything that “Basement-living” bloggers are not supposed to be. Insanely talented writers making what I would assume is a great living by, um, writing.
The debate should not be about Deadspin. And the Luddites like Bissinger don’t care about Deadspin exactly; it’s just a representation of all the evils of the blogosphere. If you think that he would read this site and say, “Oh, well, that’s okay,” I’m confident that you would be wrong. You aren’t “real trained journalists” whatever that means.
This is about access, power, money, and sales. Not dick jokes.
This exchange just makes everyone look bad. Will Leitch clearly wasn’t expecting this trip to the woodshed and was totally unprepared for such an ambush. But Costas and Bissinger just sound totally out of touch.
I would argue that posting pictures online is actually the exact opposite of putting them into the trash. In the first case, you are intentionally publishing them. In the second, you’re trying to get rid of them. I’m tired of this “Whaaa? Someone found something private I put on the Internets??? How can this be!” attitude. It’s so 2005.
The whole “tone of the post” effecting the tone of the comments thing is true neither in blogging nor in traditional journalism and these guys should know it. I write for both a traditional newspaper and a couple of blogs, and no matter what I’m writing about or where it’s published, there’s always a wiseguy or two saying something asinine in response. It’s not like the world was a happy, peaceful place with bunnies and kittens frolicking in every meadow before people started writing blogs.
Bah. Humbug.
Myron, it’s a good thing you like FireJoeMorgan, because I have a little FJM-style analysis for your comment. D-Wil is a trained journalist who has worked for newspapers before and talks to quite a few MSM reporters with names even you would recognize. Any other blanket assumptions you’d like to make? D-Wil said at the beginning that the panel people called him. Don’t you think that might mean that he’s a little more connected than you?
And praising FireJoeMorgan?! A site that exists to tear down the articles of people who write sports for a living? That’s the pinnacle of blogging? Myron, you need to do more blog surfing if that’s the best you can come up with. Look, they provide a valuable and necessary service, but I don’t gasp with wonder every time they put that bad, non-sabermetric-loving reporter from the Newport News back in his place. What original work have they done? What reporting? I haven’t read the site, so maybe I have missed it. Please, enlighten me. Oh, and how can the debate about blogging exclude Deadspin, the most popular blogging site?
Charlie and Myron, you’re misunderstanding my analogy. The very problem is that blogs do not go and take a picture from, say, Carmelo Anthony’s Myspace. I wouldn’t have a problem with that. No, they take photos from some minor-league athlete who no one has ever heard of, and thus dumbly puts up photos of himself partying or being offensive. A private citizen has rights that a celebrity in the public eye does not have.
Sarah, first, pleased to have you here, and I enjoy your writing on umpbump when I’ve read it before. That said, I have to disagree with you.
There’s a difference between “one or two wiseguys” and 100 comments on Deadspin, all making fun of one person. That’s not even a valid comparision. The tone of the post DEFINITELY affects the comments. I’ve seen articles on Deadspin, went and read the linked article, and realized the story was different than what was being reported, or how it was reported. But does anyone change their comments to represent that? No, of course not. The message sets the response. Come on, you wrote a post about how being a woman affects the responses you get. If even who you are affects the responses, then how much more will what you write affect the responses?!
And…it’s one thing to have pictures of yourself up. But suppose I went to some female athlete’s myspace, grabbed the pictures they had of themselves frolicking on the beach in a red swimsuit, and made it into a post slamming them as a “Baywatch wanna-be”. That would be totally unfair and take things out of context. (And for the record, no, I would never do that). But that’s what most of these blogs are doing! A guy with a beer in his hand? DRUNK! SLOB! A girl posing with an athlete? SLUT! I WOULD DO HER! YES! This is happening over and over again, and I’m tired of this type of drive-by judgment.
First of all let me state that I appreciate much of the dialogue in this thread.
– SML, you write: “Out of curiosity, does this argument occur in any other industry other than sports? Do music blogs get attacked by the music industry? Do political blogs get attacked by the political newspapers?”
I have no idea about music, but for politics the answer is YES — once a blog gets big enough. Bill O’Reilly has called out “Media Matters multiple times (thank god for media matters). I’ve seen the Daily Kos called out multiple times on TV. The key is when a blog gets big enough to gain substantial influence — then it must be recognized by the mainstream powers…
– S2N, loved your posts as it really nailed many great points. Profane comes in many different forms. A pig with lipstick is still a pig.
– Having stated that, I’ll be honest. DeadSpin really does disappoint me. It has such a big platform and uses so little of it for anything beyond entertainment. Now i don’t expect them to be the site that I wish they were, so I’m not trying to hold them up to my personal standard (besides thay wouldn’t be getting 10 mil clicks!). I get that. I’m judging them within their own bubble. But can’t they write SOME articles that have some social value in in between all the gratuity (not to be confuse with restaurant tips). To it’s credit I notice that The Big Lead is much more likely to slip some real shit in there every once in a while. …The best thing that I could say about DeadSpin vs. so much mainstream bullshit is that they don’t claim to be something they are not… but even still… they could do so much more…
– Marc A., I’m with you on the the Albom thing… just as egregious is Mariotti calling out radio guys…
Yes, Sarah, thanks for stopping by and I plan to get aquainted with your blog. It is always encouraging to find more estrogen in the blogosphere…
“The whole “tone of the post” effecting the tone of the comments thing is true neither in blogging nor in traditional journalism and these guys should know it.”
I also have to agree with MCBias here. In my experience, two blogs can link to the same article but I can get different reactions depending on how that link was presented. I’ve seen this many times. Authors can create an environment, but you are right that they cannot control for all commenters. That is just unrealistic.
Yeah, thanks for the calmer tone, MODI. Myron and Sarah, I appreciate you all coming to post here, and I usually treat first-time guests with a little more respect. I’m just highly disturbed (ok, angry) at the bloggosphere’s resistance to any and all attempts at self-actualization.
Deadspin is merely the flipside of sports radio. It gets just as nasty and mean-spirited on those shows as it does on deadspin, the only difference is that you can’t cuss on the air, so you use euphemisms. For instance, if I wanted to call certain former Lions quarterbacks homosexual, I would say, “Joey Harrington needs to go put on his skirt for his husband, Jeff Garcia.” But that’s ok I guess.
BTW Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Lewis Black, and Richard Pryor are profane and often mean-spirited so therefore there comedy has nothing important to say about race and politics. Similarly, deadspin has nothing valid to say about sports.
This show was just an ambush on Leitch, who really isn’t that great of a debater.
Bissinger needs to calm down and stop attacking Leitch. Leitch has written things that are every bit as poignant and moving as “Friday Night Lights” (see the “Pretend Sandwiches” essay in “Life as a Loser” for a very human look at rural midwestern poverty that was originally a blog post).
If Bissinger wants to attack the tone on websites like deadspin and kissingsuzykolber, then fine, calmly make that point, don’t read them, and then go out and publish things that are more compelling. Instead, he decided to be as profane as any deadspin commenter and resembled the caricature of every balding, past middle-aged sportswriter who doesn’t understand how and why people like blogs.
Also sorry for the misspellings and grammar errors, I’m aware it should be “their” instead of “there” and the other assorted mistakes in my post, but I was typing too quickly and need to get back to studying for Finals.
[…] on the program: Both Will and AJ from Deadspin, Orson at EDSBS, Brian at Awful Announcing, D-Wil at Sports on My Mind (who agrees with Bissinger), FJM’s Ken Tremendous, The FanHouse’s Michael David Smith, […]
“BTW Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Lewis Black, and Richard Pryor are profane and often mean-spirited so therefore there comedy has nothing important to say about race and politics.”
Warren, these comedians have social statements ingrained in their comedy in a way that i don’t find comparable to DeadSpin. I will read the posts you outline because I don’t want to sell them short, but if these posts do have social value, then i would hope that some of DeadSpin’s loyal readership would try to encourage more of them. …again, I’m not saying that Will Leitch needs to become a born-again or anything… but just raise the bar a little… it’s not a lot to ask…
The tone of the post DEFINITELY affects the comments.
Absolutely. Does the tone of the NY Post (harsh conservative rhetoric) not effect the tone of those who read the Post, and write letters to the Post?!?
That’s to say, you don’t have full control over what people read, what they take from your writing, and how they choose to disseminate it… but you definitely have effect.
Claiming that blogs are a harbinger of us all becoming willing citizens of some future “idiocracy”, as Buzz claims, is neglecting the very real and recognized present we all live in and the past 25 year slide of so-called ‘respectable journalism’. Corporate profit-mongering has shuttered global newsbureaus and damaged newsroom quality in papers across this country, thus leading to ever-more inventive ways to boost readership and make money. Hence - if it bleeds it leads. That’s not some blogosphere invention, it’s what idealistic journalists of today, whom Buzz seems to believe are to be sainted above the soiled masses, are forced to deal with.
Buzz’s colleagues and their ink-stained superiors hold as much responsibility for creating this climate as anything written on the internet. So next time he bemoans a future he fears, he should take a glimpse at the present he created and the past he toiled through for answers. Chances are he wouldn’t like what he sees. It might even ‘bug the shit out of him’.
I don’t understand where anyone can draw the line between responsible and irresponsible journalism. The rules are unwritten and each person’s idea of where to draw the line is unique. And even if someone were to hypothetically write the rules of journalism down, then they’d be open to some kind of quasi-judicial interpretation and argument, and maybe we’d be back at square one.
Where do you draw the line? I mean, is Matt Leinart bonging a beer at a party not “news” because you can’t determine whether or not when he was doing it? Or is it news because, as a professional athlete and a finely-tuned athletic machine Leinart shouldn’t be engaging in binge drinking, and the owners/coaches/teammates/fans have a right to know? What about the Roger Clemens-Mindy McReady story? Is that “news” because Clemens was *allegedly* having an affair with her, or is it irresponsbile journalism and muckraking because she obviously didn’t care to press charges and such? The fact of the matter is, nobody knows, nobody can give a definitive answer, and one man’s journalism is another man’s dirt-digging.
Plus, sports journalism is by its very nature speculation. Think about it….traditional evening-news type journalism deals with issues that we aren’t there to watch. Crimes, political affairs, community notices, things that we need to be informed about by a press corps whose responsibility it is to relate the facts of the situation that we missed firsthand. Meanwhile, in sports, you watch the games themselves. So you saw the event live or on TV as it unfolded. Any journalism beyond strict detailing of what happened in the game is analysis, commentary, opinion, editorial, hearsay….whatever you want to call it. When someone says that “the Rockets lost because T-Mac couldn’t deliver in the clutch” that’s opinion, hearsay because *nobody* but McGrady knows what McGrady was thinking. When someone says “The Suns lost because Mike D’Antoni didn’t make the right adjustments” well unless you were in Mike D’Antoni’s huddles, and Gregg Popovich’s huddles, and compared the two’s play calls and schemes and decided that indeed the Phoenix Suns made adjustments, perfectly executed by the players which happened to be the wrong adjustments thanks to D’Antoni, then its hearsay, opinion, commentary. And no journalist, blogger, etc. can humanly do those things. So sports journalism, even the most responsible kind, is all bullshit, in a way.
total ambush on tv, followed by a bias analysis of the program. i don’t ever recall deadspin or any blogger claiming to be doing hard hitting news yet they all claim that this is the goal. Costas and Bissinger must be among the same idiots who think the daily show is a news broadcast. is it so difficult to differentiate between news and entertainment? Costas and bissinger can’t even tell the difference between a poster and a commentor so i dont know why i would ever consider their oppinion on this subject when clearly they have an extremely limited understanding of these newfangled blogs. These are lashing out at what they oddly percieve as a threat to their “craft.” Eventhough this is like Mike Wallace feeling threatened that suddenly jon stewart was gonna take his job.
motown, as to you last post, it is entirely true, but I don’t think that this is the main criticism as Costas alluded to in the segment. Costas brought a valid point when he said: “The reasonable criticism [of the worst of the sports blogsphere] is of the tone of gratuitous pot shots and “mean-spirited abuse. That’s the reasonable criticism.”
That IS reasonable. You’re where to draw the line point is valid, but just cuz I can’t draw a perfect line doesn’t mean that I don’t know what is on the other side of it. When the example was brought up last night about female sportscasters and “would you do this one?” or “would you do that one?”, I could comfortably say that this is on the wrong side of the line.
Now using the Leinart example. No, i don’t think that the photo should be news. And he was in his own damn HOME. … but let’s say another blogger disagrees, i hope that they would go out of their way to post OTHER positive stuff about the athlete if they wanted to ahem, “humanize” them…
Hola, peeps. Let me respond and mostly agree.
“Absolutely. Does the tone of the NY Post (harsh conservative rhetoric) not effect the tone of those who read the Post, and write letters to the Post?!?”
Well, the Post chooses what letters to print, based on the style they want to project. They probably do get letters with references to, say, Kafka, but they don’t print them. The New York Times would take the opposite tack. My old job, for instance, was working for the political columnist Ellen Goodman. As part of the job, I read her reader email looking for corrections. She gets a ton of mail, a lot of it incredibly vitriolic. Yet her column is one of the most sincere, down-to-earth political columns out there. She could write a story on her grandchildren, and get back these screaming email bombs telling her to go to hell. So that’s when I decided that it makes (almost) no difference what you write….there are always going to be people (maybe even a lot of people) who write crazy things in response. The reason I said “one or two wiseguys” is that I’m not famous enough to get angry letters from 100 wiseguys.
I think where Deadspin does run up against the line is that you pretty much have to audition to get to be one of their commenters! Like the Post or the Times, they want their comments to reflect their branding. So they have to take more responsibility for the comments posted than Will did in the interview. I’m always disappointed to skim through them and see a few jerks saying really coarse things—I don’t think I need to give examples, I’m sure you’ve seen them too. Why do they leave those up? Waste of pixels.
But I do think that the content of an unmoderated reader comment is enough outside of the control of the writer that it was foolish of Bissinger to raise it. For an example, just look at that laughing baby video on YouTube. Who *are* those people who write things like, “That baby scares me! It’s possessed by Satan! It’s ugly!” I mean, it’s a laughing baby. It’s about as innocent and pure as you get. So, I guess that type of comment was the sort of comment I was referring to. With the Deadspin comments where there are 100 chuckleheads all trying to be funny at some poor slob’s expense….that’s just mob mentality. It’s ugly. I agree.
“In my experience, two blogs can link to the same article but I can get different reactions depending on how that link was presented.”
I see what you’re saying, and I agree. Actually, speaking of Deadspin, they linked to a post I had written comparing several writeups of the Red Sox winning the pennant last year with a headline like, “BOB RYAN TOTALLY WASHED UP, SHOULD BE FIRED” (I exaggerate but only slightly). I wasn’t really saying that at all….but we did get a ton of comments from Bob Ryan defenders. Oopsies. I guess I’m saying that I can’t control either the comments a story elicits, or the headline someone else puts on it.
motown- and everyone…
For the beat reporter, sports journalism is the most difficult job in journalism. A person must take a game that potentially tens of millions of people watched the day or night before and make it live again in people’s minds, make what they write insightful enough for people to read.
Sports journalism, for the beat reporter should, like political journalism never be speculation. That’s why a person covers the team every day. Their assignment is to come to know the team and all its vagaries like no one else. It is not easy, not nearly as easy as people like Leitch and plenty of others make it. 99% of “fans” have absolutely no clue what is happening on the court, the field or course because you must invest the time into understanding the games you are viewing.
Most beat reporters do invest that time. Unfortunately, after so many years of doing the same thing, seeing the same arenas, etc. they can get lazy. However, there is no excuse for that laziness as every single game is unique.
Now, for those who have never performed the job of a beat reporter or for those who do not invest the time to understand the game - and today we’re talking mostly bloggers - all they can do is speculate… and that is unfortunate for the rest of fandom looking for something “new” to read.
It makes me sick to my stomach to read popular blogs and their accounts of what they think are the “details” of games. Unless they luck up on something, they never, ever get it right. and that is the beef journalists have with people like Will Leitch and many others who throw out pap and act as if they’re providing some sort of insight into the games we see.
See, the thing for bloggers and that goes for AOL Deadspin, The Big Lead and their ilk is that when they happen to break a story they want to be known as journalists. When they get totally busted and called out for the crap they write, they fall back on the claim that they are “just bloggers.”
Now, when it comes to speculation, that is the job of the columnist. Hopefully columnists are people who understand the games they watch to the point where they can pluck out the essence of a game and relate that essence to their audience - and do it on command.
Unfortunately today newspapers and Big Box sports media outlets allow people without that necessary depth of understanding to write columns. And that is where the writers, papers, magazines, and Big Box outlets get into trouble. That is when a blogger can be as insightful as their counterpart in the MSM; neither know what’s happening, so which person’s perspective is correct?
And that is where bloggers who don’t understand what they are watching make their hay.
But no one but no one in their right minds should argue for the validity for these popular blogs that lie about their purpose.
I do respect people like the writers at Fire Joe Morgan who understand the difference between journalism and snark. They know snark sells, so they pursue it —- and they’ll tell you it’s what they are doing. the KSK crew is a band of comedians who use sports as the vehicle for their comedy II know, I’ve conversed with them about their purpose and I respect and praise them for being so forthright in the email conversation I had with one of the writers). Unlike too may of their brethren, they do not pretend to be something they are not.
As one blogger wrote to me (angrily) in a private email: “I work my ass off to sit all day and think of snarky stuff to write on my website. It’s damn difficult and I should be respected for what I do.
Well yeah, if you’re a comedian —- but not if you want to be perceived as a serious journalist.
And all of the above is why people like Buzz Bissinger get so pissed off at bloggers.
For me, when he talked about working for 40 years to hone his craft THAT was the most real statement I could have possibly imagined to hear from a writer. And it’s why I told an editor at a Big Box that I do not have the goal of being on television - ever. I will not cross the line from journalist to “personality” which is less than an inch away from entertainer, which puts me on the same side of the line as the athlete.
To me, this thing called writing is an art. And like art it can be very nearly all-consuming….. and writing about sports in a salient fashion and developing as many voices as possible to disseminate sports information is a wonderful test of one’s knowledge of this art. And all I know is that I’ll learn be more proficient at this art every day.
Oh yeah, and because the happenings in and around sports mirror the socio-cultural and socio-political condition of our country, this art or this “thing” called sportswriting often carries with it a responsibility that I wonder if many people in and outside of journalism even comprehend.
MODI, I know that dwil is a trained journalist. And he is obviously an excellent writer.
Bissinger, Costas, etc. all think that he lives in his mother’s basement and posts in his underwear.
Why?
Because he is a blogger.
You may think that you are above Deadspin or KissingSuzyKolber. But in the eyes of the “trained” journalists, you are all working in the same dungeon.
Here is an additional thought: Maybe we have reached a point in our culture where sports journalism in the traditional sense is utterly unnecessary. Sports journalism was essentially created in the 1920s.
Grantland Rice had to describe that blue-gray October sky because 99.99 percent of his readers were never going to see a live Notre Dame football game.
Last week, I watched what may have been the best pro basketball game I ever saw. I watched it live on HDTV which meant I could see Tim Duncan’s nose hairs on that three pointer. I had it tivoed so I watched key moments again. If I wanted to, I probably could have hooked up a telestrator and diagrammed the plays. I had the quotes from the coach’s press conferences immediately. I was able to go to blogs and discuss it with other fans and get all their perspective. What could “a trained journalist” possibly provide me at that point? A quote from a player’s locker? What it felt like in the press row? Hell, I had a better view of the game.
All print journalism is rapidly dying, and a lot of that is a shame. Real political journalism is necessary because I can’t sit in a Senator’s office. I can’t sit on a candidate’s plan. I can see every meaningful moment of an athlete’s job though. Sports journalism has always been entertainment reporting. Now it is becoming superfulous entertainment reporting.
Why exactly are Leitch and Deadspin being blamed by Costas and Bissinger for things like the Leinart photos? Deadspin didn’t post them first, they merely picked up the “story” after the pics were posted on another site.
Know who else picked up this “story”? The LA times, the newspapers in Arizona, ESPN in its various incantations, ABC news, etc etc. So Deadspin (and other blogs) gets piled on for doing the same thing that the “legitimate” media does. The big difference is that most blogs treat things like that with a light touch, finding a bit of humor in the spectacle, as opposed to MSM types who more than likely fall all over themselves to wag a serious finger at these supposed transgressions.
Myron-
I don’t know why you have such an animus toward me but it makes it difficult to discuss anything with someone who wants only to “make points” by portraying what is said and written differently than what actually is.
With that said, if you read my comments you would understand exactly why I have problem with Deadspin. (above them? your words, not mine). And if you thought about them without this animus you might even come to remember some examples of the very items I brought up. And I even provide a tip: go back to the “Orange Roundie” coverage by Deadspin The Big Lead, Yay Sports and the other bloggers who levied personal attacks at Robert “Scoop” Jackson despite his providing a perfectly plausible and logical explanation for what happened (and because of my experience with being cited - or not - by writers at ESPN.com. I understand exactly how the editors there work - which is to the detriment of all independent sports journalists). Additionally, I gave praise to the writers at KSK for being forthright about their pursuits and ambitions.
The page views for Deadspin were made known by Costas and the graphic with the number of pageviews for Deadspin were prtominently displayed on the “Costas Now” set - so obviously no one believes Leitch or anyone from any very popular blog lives in his (or her) mother’s basement and posts in his underwear. It is a figure of speech, plain and simple. Not a particularly nice one, but it serves its purpose for MSM. Oddly, talking heads at CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News use the phrase much more often than do any MSM sportswriters.
And though you seem to want to sincerely believe that in the eyes of “trained” journalists I’m seen just like them, I have to tell you - as did MODI and MCBias - that that is not true. This is not to say that they will demean me as a “blogger” when necessary, because they have. Rob King, the editor of ESPN.com even went so far as to tell someone to tell me to “spend 10 minutes in a press box.” He had to know this was a lie because he and I spoke for nearly two hours about the possibility of me writing for Big Box.com. Also, since I emailed the editor who was acting as a conduit between he and I my resume, he knew and knows my background. But he still went that extra mile to attempt to impugn my character by relating to a third party that I had no MSM experience.
However, many MSM sports journalists read my work and we regiularly talk and share thoughts and feelings about the goings-on in the sports world. I also am a guest on a bi-weekly NPR Internet sports roundtable show with Greg Lee, the managing editor of the online portion of the Boston Globe’s sports section; Jemele Hill of ESPN.com is a frequent guest. I appear monthly on Dave Zirin’s Air America XM satellite radio show to do a monthly roundup of the happenings in the sports world. And as I wrote in my notes on the “Costas Now” town hall meeting, I was approached to contribute my thoughts and feelings to help form what you watched last night. For nearly a year I contributed sports pieces to Counterpunch Political Newletter.I am also the national columnist for the National Sports Review (formerly the Chicago Sports Review).
So, no mainstream sportswriters do not see me in the fashion you want to believe they do. AND yes, at the same time some of the more spurious of their profession will stoop to any level to demean independent sports writers, no matter the truth..
And as far as seeing “meaningful moments of an athlete’s job” - that’s one thing. But you seeing only scratches the surface of what actually happened in the game or to a given athlete. The sports writers job is to explain why and how and to give you info that might never know otherwise. If he or she cannot provide what is happening inside, they are not doing their joib.
You see, the fallacy of the fan is that because you can witness what is happening, you know what is happening. And because television is so illusory and because ESPN’s brand of 24-hour sports coverage is so pervasive people think they can know simply by watching the game and absorbing some stats or facts picked out for them by others. Believe it or not, it really does take some study of the present and an understanding of the history of the sport you’re watching to understand why and what and how the sport is what it is today.
These game do not happen in the vacuum they appear to happen. They take place in the context of every game before them and those played arounf them today.
@dwil
“Well yeah, if you’re a comedian —- but not if you want to be perceived as a serious journalist.”
That is precisely the point. Specifically to the HBO program Leitch has never claimed to be exercising any desire to be considered a ’serious journalist’. I don’t hear Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert claiming to be ’serious journalists’ either, but they lend entertainment/comedic/insightful value to the proceedings.
I fail to see what there is to be so angry about.
Gibbon-
Not true. Leitch has leaned on his background as a writer and author to make the point that he is as viable a sportswriter as any other mainstream sportswriter, i.e. serious writer. There is an interview on The Starting five with Will Leitch and in it he specifically uses his experience at the New York Times to make that point.
And if he is not what he pretends to be, why appear on a town hall meeting on sports and media? If he is a humor writer, then state that and be done with attempting to break stories and perform any function of a sports writer.
dwil - I never attacked or impugned you. I’m not sure where you got that.
I said that in the eyes of Bissinger and Costas and Rick Reilly and God knows who else, you are swimming the same sewer as Leitch. If Leitch’s background at the NY Times, Slate, and with his books has not given him any cover, yours has not either. And you confirmed it yourself with your issues with ESPN - who is pretty much going to control the entire sporting universe in the next ten years.
And obviously, not every sportswriter feels this way. Jemele Hill is not 106 years old.
I view this war between the old guard of sportswriting and bloggers in the same way I view the battle between the old baseball men and the sabermetricians. What really should have been welcomed with open arms by the establishment was mocked and unfairly attacked by a group who never even understood what it was they were attacking.
And I disagree (slightly) with the notion that there is that much to gain from a sportswriter’s insight about a particular game. I’ve read every baseball book I could get my hands on since I was six. I think I got the history covered. I spent months in a dugout every year from the age of 10 to 22. I think I got the strategy now. At this point, what I need from writers’ the front office coverage, the injury report and who is sleeping with whom’s wife. The last one is most important in regards to betting games.
There are two huge areas where sportswriters could claim the high ground at this point - feature writing and the sociology of sports. But both of those areas seem to be in steep decline.
@dwil
Fair enough, and it was my error for turning the argument towards Leitch and away from Deadspin. I further erred by using stewart instead of the Daily show and colbert instead of the Colbert Report. Bygones.
I don’t believe that Leitch has ever defended Deadspin as being serious journalism. He himself may wish to be considered a ’serious journalist’ in his other freelance endeavors/writing assignments.
As to why he was brought on to a segment regarding sports and media, he’s the editor of one of the most popular sports blogs. Many may not like what is done there and many may not find it in particularly good taste - but the Post has as much a reason to exist as the Times, and for people to read both. There are plenty of ‘tabloid’ journalists out there with clubhouse credentials and even pundits who choose not to participate, yet are somehow accepted by mainstream media (Mariotti/Paige, etc.)
Again, they seem just like two separate worlds and to believe that the reading public is so simple as to not differentiate between the two/absorb the two is borderline insulting.
Gibbon-
I totally agree with you about the tabloid boys (and women)…. and that way of conducting business is more responsible than anything for the impending death of print journalism as we knew it. And for that we have to thank publishers and their bottom line wishes and the editors who carry out their wishes for hiring and sseking out such crap.
They are two separate worlds and yet I would say that the sports blogsphere operates along the same lines as MSM - and its American cultural mirror.
If the sports blogsphere was truly about independent journalism and an independent mentality and was anti-mainstream in its stance, why is it that when people like myself and other writers who attack mainstream writers when we perceive it to be racist or misogynist we are attacked and not the members of MSM responsible for their racist verbiage?
It tells me that the vast majority of people in the sports blogsphere are not interested in changing the landscape of sports journalism as we know it. This phenomenon led me to realize early on in my online writing that the sports blogsphere is nowhere near the “meritocracy” Leitch says it is (if I remember correctly and it was him last night who said that). It is a total
“Again, they seem just like two separate worlds and to believe that the reading public is so simple as to not differentiate between the two/absorb the two is borderline insulting.”
I think was is so disconcerting about this is that the Deadspin commentators (of which, I am sure you guessed, I am one) by and large probably loved Bissinger before yesterday. I would guess that a vast majority of posters there have read Friday Night Lights. And a vast majority of that group - like me - fell in love with the book. It was one of those books that made me want to write.
Granted, he wrote a truly awful book on LaRussa later one, but whatever. No one blames Hunter S. Thompson for the crap he wrote in the 80s.
So, here is one of my literary idols attacking Will - who is not a literary idol but someone I respect and whose work I enjoy and who I think is truly at the vanguard of media revolution that I support.
I think the sense of betrayal from Bissinger is the biggest factor here. He is clearly a brilliant journalist. He is not Skip Bayless - a hack saying anything for money. He actually BELIEVES this stuff he is saying. I thought he was smarter than that.
Sarah, another way to look at the discussion is length of comment. Why are all of DeadSpin’s commenter’s one or two liners… can’t anyone put together a full paragraph? Does DeadSpin cut the comments off?
(Note: I once left a comment my first time at DeadSpin a year ago; I wasn’t so lucky to have gotten the comment “approved” as it may have exceeded one sentence, so i never really tried again because part of me resented being “tested” especially after reading many of the commenters who actually passed initiation into the club…)
But even if we forget DeadSpin, experience also shows me that blogs with short posts get commenters with short comments. And more thoughtful posts = more thoughtful comments. not all, just %-wise
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“But in the eyes of the “trained” journalists, you are all working in the same dungeon.”
Myron, that may or not be the case depending on the journalist. I’ve received quite favorable offline comments from many journalists, and nitpicky ones from others that hold a standard that they would never hold themselves to. In any event, you can’t worry about what MSM says… in the end, I’m no blog snob, but I know what pandering to a lowest-common-demononator audience when I see it,,,
As for the beat reporter, I would agree that they are less valuable than in the past because of the walls between atlete-media today, however. there is still value. Iin addition to Dwil’s comments, there are some things I pick up at every basketball game that I can never get from a TV. How do guys move without the ball? Defensive intensity? A number of other items that don’t come through the limited rectangle of the TV. …I went to Gilbert Arenas’ very first game as a Washington Wizard, and I knew right then and there that he would be an all-star. His lightening quick first step was something that just didn’t translate to TV the way it did live… As for Tim Duncan’s nose hairs, score one for HDTV…
“The whole “tone of the post” effecting the tone of the comments thing is true neither in blogging nor in traditional journalism and these guys should know it. I write for both a traditional newspaper and a couple of blogs, and no matter what I’m writing about or where it’s published, there’s always a wiseguy or two saying something asinine in response. It’s not like the world was a happy, peaceful place with bunnies and kittens frolicking in every meadow before people started writing blogs.” - Sarah
How could the tone not affect the comments? If someone agreed with the tone, then he will say so. And vice-versa. That’s like saying the information in the article affect the comment. People can agree or take offence to anything, even your font or use of capital letters.
Tone, as it’s usually defined, means a particular style or manner. In the case of Deadspin, their posts try to be witty and funny. A lot of people think racism, sexism and elitism is funny, and it shows on Deadspin.
A lot of people read shit posted on anything and immediately agree with it, or somehow relate to it, just because they like the author. They don’t think critically.
That’s why sports blogs are so important. The MSM has a very concentrated ownership. Even though the majority of sports blogs are trite reiterations from the MSM, there are some that filter out and find a wide audience (ie. zirin’s, dwill’s, and sml’s.)
Waitaminit. What the f*ck? Bissinger and Costas are representing the “legitimate press.” In the real world (not the fantasyland of sports “journalism”), the “legitimate press” are having conniptions over Obama’s flag pin; Brian Williams is applauding Peggy Noonan’s Op-Ed piece that calls Obama a commie because Obama doesn’t get misty-eyed when he thinks of the Wright Brothers (seriously); and the “legitimate press” are leading off their reports/running headlines about magazine pictures that make Miley Cyrus look like a rape victim.
And Bissinger is whinging about SPORTS BLOGS dumbing us down past the point of no return?!
Sports is entertainment. Most of the sporting blogs I read are humorous by intent (WithLeather, KSK). Does the “legitimate press” look down at those who choose to be irreverent about entertainment?
No wonder I wouldn’t piss on a newspaper to put out a grease fire–especially if the likes of Buzz Bissinger were wrapped in it.
I been to Deadspin, KSK and the other more popular blogs fewer than five times total.
I find it interesting that they are so popular. The posts weren’t that funny to me, and I got tired of the racism in many of the comments. And, MODI’s info that those comments actually get screened before they are posted really proves the point that the Deadspin folks are ok with a lot of the nasty stuff that gets said on their site.
The way of the world is people have camera phones, digital cameras, et alia and they are someplace, they will take pictures, forward them to their friends who, in turn, forward them to bloggers…that is it. If anything, the papparazzi has competition. And if you think that going to someone’s MySpace or Facebook for pictures is trash picking…then it only shows how utterly disconnected one is from how these services are used or function. The are MEANT for spectacle.