Is no access good for media? Then why does Deadspin always post pictures of athletes drunk?

MITCHELL BLATT

I attacked Buzz Bissinger yesterday (Post) for his stance on blogging in his debate with Will Leitch. (Video) Well, now I’m going to attack Leitch. While Bissinger attacked blogs for their offensive and angry nature, it was Bissinger who couldn’t speak a single sentence without turning the volume up to Stephen A. Smith. However, Leitch was ignorant about the issue of why blogs are popular.

Leitch criticized mainstream media for having too much access. He thinks that if you are able to interview athletes, for example like Henry Abbott of TrueHoop, one of the most popular basketball blogs, you will somehow not be able to write a good blog. He attacks the “privileged sportswriters” with access. What about “privileged” bloggers who have people sending them pictures of Matt Leinart doing a beer bong? Deadspin is one of few blogs that has access to those types of photos that are popular on sports blogs.

The thing is not whether you have access or not, but what you do with your access, and having credentials gives you a better chance of getting to seeing the sport and writing about it in any style.

For example, what if a blogger went up to a baseball player and asked them to piss in a cup so that they could check for steroids. That would be hilarious. It was when Rick Reilly did it.

However Big Daddy Bitch, writing on Deadspin, used that as an example of why sportswriters suck. He said:

You can’t brutally criticize athletes and expect them to give you any access.

But Rick Reilly criticizes athletes all the time, for example in his attempt to test Sosa. Now maybe he’d have less access if they talked about Rich Garces’ tits or Tony Parker’s vagina, but hell, what do you need that for?

Any real journalist can write a column criticizing a player while maintaining access. Sometimes an athlete will get offended and overreact, and hell, you’ve got another column to write about how you got in a fight with said athlete. Though it should be said that many columnists don’t even care about access. And yet those same columnists who don’t take advantage of potential access (i.e. Jay Mariotti) and instead write trashy articles about how Ozzie Guillen sucks more than Tony Parker’s vagina, are the columnists that Deadspinners hate. (I happen to hate Mariotti as well.)

Blogging isn’t about the everyday fan writing his opinion. (“We need to pull Carmona in the 8th! That was a bad decision! I should be manager!”) It’s just about having a personality. It’s just a different medium for the sports column (albeit one that allows more freedom in most cases.)

People don’t go online to read last night’s game story. They go online to read why Rich Garces sucks. If someone badgered Sosa about giving his urine, that would be popular in print or online.

Buzz Bissinger: Why He Didn’t Major in Economics

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