There’s a debate raging and kick yourself if you missed it. It's not the on-going Jeremiah Wright/Barack Obama saga. Hard to miss that since it’s been on the cable news spin cycle for several straight days. The same goes for the faux outrage over the Miley Cyrus pictures that seems to have parents in a twitter even as they help crash Vanity Fair’s website itching for a peak. The debate I’m talking about is the old media and the new and its impact on sports journalism, itself a somewhat oxymoronic term.
Bob Costas, on his usually insightful HBO show, Bob Costas Now, took the debate front and center the other night with a variety of panels and commentators, the purpose of which I guess was to shed light on this emerging topic. It informed little and entertained even less. If you could get through the whole episode, and gosh why would the average person want to, the underlying theme that emerged was the old school sports journalists complaining that blog writers just need to get off of their lawn.
Debates like these go on every time a new technology begins to mature and the arc is always the same. You have the so-called traditionalists suspicious of anything new that potentially threatens to invade their comfort zone going up against the early adopters who often lack an appreciation of history and generally come across as smart asses. It may seem like a recipe for interesting television, but in terms of providing any real insight you’d be better off watching an episode of Family Guy.
By this point, Costas has become like MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann in that he has a ready stable of go-to pundits to author ghost opinions that are designed to make the host look neutral while still getting his real point of view across. A Costas symposium these days wouldn’t be complete without an appearance by either Charles Barkely or John McEnroe to explain the plight of the victimized modern athlete.
But Costas really outdid himself by inviting Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights and Three Nights in August, to parry against Will Leitch, the creator of the internet site Deadspin. As a backdrop, though, recognize that Costas himself caused somewhat of a stir himself a few months back by essentially denigrating sports bloggers with an incredibly broad brush. In an interview with the Miami Herald (no longer available on its website, but a summary is out there), Costas came across as someone with a stick in his colon because the emerging trend doesn’t just violate most of the basic principles of responsible journalism, but that it, in his words, “confuses simple mean-spiritedness and stupidity with edginess.”
Article comments
1 - Matthew T. Sussman
Okay, many a points about the panel:
• Bissinger says blogs are cruel, right after he calls Will Leitch "full of shit" to his face.
• Costas lauds credentials and access, yet neither Bissinger nor Costas can get the byline right on Big Daddy Drew's column about Rick Reilly. (Costas said it was A.J. Daulerio, no idea how the hell he got that wrong.)
• Leitch was asked to respond to a Deadspin column that he didn't write. (On TWO DIFFERENT OCCASIONS.)
• Drew's subsequent satire post about Bissinger fucking horses was absolutely obscene. And hilarious.
• Credentialed sports reporters are in no danger from sports blogs.
• Leitch is the nicest, most genuine guy you'll ever meet, but holy Christ he needs a speech coach.
2 - El Bicho
“confuses simple mean-spiritedness and stupidity with edginess.”
sorry, but that does sound like a good portion of the Internet.
"the profane nature of many blogs and he made this point as forcefully and profanely as he could."
So? There's a difference between talking about the work and the work itself.
"Leitch was asked to respond to a Deadspin column that he didn't write."
If he's the publisher, why shouldn't he account for them?
3 - Gary Benz
Two points, El Bicho: if Costas is concerned about mean-spiritedness and stupidity being confused with edginess, why did he invite Bissinger to engage in nothing but mean-spirtedness and stupidity? Second, there may be a difference between the work and talking about it, but geez, if you're going to criticize the work for being profane, shouldn't you find a better way to criticize than using your own healthy dose of profanity? I'd be surprise if in some private moment of self-reflection that Bissinger doesn't come to the realization that he came across as a ridiculously bitter has-been when in truth he's neither.
4 - Matthew T. Sussman
"If he's the publisher, why shouldn't he account for them?"
He should certainly be accountable for the column, but Leitch didn't pen it and as it turns out didn't really share the sentiment of the paragraph Costas brought up. It was like asking Dave Nalle why Alex Hutchinson thinks we should overthrow the government, and Costas fell into the false assumption that two Deadspin sports bloggers think alike in that all credentialed sportswriters are bad.
It would have made more sense to actually debate him on something he wrote. (Y'know, like the book he was there to promote.) He was asked why he published the Matt Leinart beer bong photos, but he was just linking and rehosting pictures from TheDirty.com.
5 - El Bicho
"if Costas is concerned about mean-spiritedness and stupidity being confused with edginess, why did he invite Bissinger to engage in nothing but mean-spirtedness and stupidity?"
First, maybe I am wrong, but I believe Costas' concern about the confusion was in regards to sports journalism. Second, while Costas knew Bissinger agreed, unless there was a rehearsal, how would he know the way Bissinger would act?
"It was like asking Dave Nalle why Alex Hutchinson thinks we should overthrow the government,"
That's not accurate. Nalle's not the editor in chief of BC, but even if he were representing the site, he wouldn't need to defend why Alex thinks the government should be overthrown, but why BC published it.
Leitch was there to represent Deadspin and had to know what was going to be talked about, so he should be able to make the case for DS publishing articles he disagrees with.
6 - Matthew T. Sussman
"if he were representing the site, he wouldn't need to defend why Alex thinks the government should be overthrown, but why BC published it."
Exactly, and that's why I had a problem with Costas trying to debate the article's points to the original author by proxy through Leitch.
I think the only time he was pressed on "why did you publish this" was when his byline actually showed up on the post with the Matt Leinart photos. And I was fine with that question.