Bloggers vs Mainstream Media
Mark Cuban feuds with Will Leitch; Journalists debate the future of mainstream journalims and blogs…
MITCHELL BLATT
Mark Cuban was interviewed by Will Leitch for a piece in GQ Magazine, and Leitch later blogged about the interview and about why Cuban will never own the Cubs on the blog Valley Wag.
Cuban was mad that Leitch blogged about it because he was not told that it would be featured on a blog that Cuban thought was trashy. (Maybe because Leith had blogged about Cuban getting a lap dance?
Leitch says he didn’t mention anything in his blog post that wasn’t mentioned in the GQ article. He did nothing wrong. I could blog about the GQ article, too, if I wanted. It’s not something that interests me, though, at least not as much as Stephen A. Smith does.
Blogs, as Viewed by Sports Journalists
Mainstream journalists are always wondering how blogs can be so popular when they have NO CREDIBILITY. Big Daddy Drew of Kissing Suzy Kolber wrote a good piece for Deadspin on why blogs are popular and how they differ from real journalism.
Basically, he said that blogs aren’t journalism, and they don’t even try to be journalism. They are simply entertainment, but MSM guys don’t understand them, so they brand them a journalism. If they are journalism, they would be bad journalism because many are not credible.
But, most blogs don’t report anything, they just entertain. Even when blogs try to report news or use shady facts to build their opinions, people don’t take them very seriously. The Big Lead has been an offender in reporting “news,” for example, they reported a rumor that Brady has illegitimate children. Have you ever heard anyone mention that before? No, because everyone who read it realized that it was a rumor and probably a false one.
The guys debating it on the Sports Journalists forums (very interesting as they are populated by real journalists, including Jason Whitlock), don’t seem to see that.
Here’s an example:
The problem is there are more bloggers who act like BDD and WANT to be taken seriously and want creds than there are terrible journalists who don’t deserve creds.
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Some (again SOME) bloggers are just fanboys, wannabe journalists, ranters, etc.
It’s just that most (all) bloggers don’t want credentials. (Especially not sports bloggers, political bloggers and others are more advanced in that sense.) I guess it’s more noticable when you are a sports journalist with credentials, annoyed the ONE blogger tried to get credentials at one point, but MLB, NFL, NBA, and every other credible sport don’t even consider giving credentials to reporters. Hockey, and a few other fringe “sports,” have started granting some bloggers credentials.
Furthermore, some bloggers actually do good jobs as journalists. The Big Lead has posted many rumors, but they also posted some news stories that were correct, and they helped cover Rick Reilly leaving Sports Illustrated (they did not break the story, however). Point is, you should look at bloggers on an individual basis. Blogs are just a medium for disseminating content, not a type of content.
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[...] Mitchell Blatt, at Juiced Sports Blog tackled that whole Mark Cuban/Will Leitch blogger ethics situation (nice breakdown of how bloggers are viewed by mainstream media). (via Juiced Sports Blog) [...]
I agree with a portion of your views, although I don’t place a lot of credence in what’s being written at the bigger blog sites. There seems to be a growing disconnect with the big blog sites and the smaller ones. I think the smaller, newer sites have an advantage over the big sites in two areas.
One, we’ve been able to view the blogosphere and take everything in. That is to say, we’ve seen all the sites and listened to what the bloggers and the professional media are saying. We can mold what we’re doing to offer unique content to our readers.
Second, I agree with your assessment that most bloggers don’t want to be thought of as journalists nor are reporting breaking stories. However, I’ve reported two stories this year that are relevant and unique. I’m just lucky I guess, but the point is bloggers can be on point if that’s what we choose to do. From what I can tell most aren’t interested in going that route and that’s fine with me. There’s plenty of room out there for every type of blog and ultimately we all serve a purpose.
I’ve said that least 3071134 times. The problem this like that is they are just too compilcated for the average bird, if you know what I mean