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It seemed possible during an exchange on HBO's Bob Costas show this week that author Buzz Bissinger would jump out of his seat and attack sports blogger Will Leitch.
A debate on the pros and cons of sports blogs is getting old, but a fistfight on the set would have been new and interesting, not to mention consistent with the untamed Wild West image of the sports blogosphere.
After listening to Leitch, the founder of Deadspin.com, hold forth on journalism – he just can't understand why a reporter should need to be objective – it's small wonder Bissinger, a journalist, started to get twitchy and then flat-out incensed.
This from Leitch: “I've never quite understood the idea that, like, now I'm a journalist and now I cheer for no team. Oh, really? Why did you get into sports news in the first place?”
Well, how about this: because he or she wanted to be a journalist, enjoyed sports and thought it would be interesting to write about it?
“I feel strongly about this,” Bissinger said, turning to Leitch. “I really think you're full of [expletive]. I think that blogs are dedicated to cruelty, dedicated to journalistic dishonesty.”
Deadspin's motto is “sports news without access, favour or discretion,” but sports news without favour doesn't square with Leitch cheering on his website for the St. Louis Cardinals, his favourite team. Bissinger, the author of Friday Night Lights, noted the contradiction.
The issue that Costas pushed hard was the “mean-spirited abusiveness” that pervades sports blogs. Leitch noted that most of it is the product not of items, but rather reader comments.
Bissinger despairs of the dumbing down, the poor quality of writing and the coarseness of the conversation on the Internet. But he made no real effort to distinguish between a sleazy blog and the Internet editions of respected news organizations.
The difference is important, because everybody's online and the printed newspaper is in a slow, inexorable decline. According to reports, consumers 18 to 34 make up only 19 per cent of newspaper readership in the United States. If they're sports fans, they get most of their information from the Internet.
Michael Wilbon, a sports columnist for the Washington Post and co-host of ESPN's Pardon The Interruption, says his producers are under 40, well educated and informed – and they don't read newspapers.
“That depresses the hell out of me,” he said.
It depresses Bissinger, too.
“Maybe that's why I'm so heated and so angry,” he said as the show wrapped up. “Because this guy [Leitch], whether we like it or not, is the future. I'm not the future.
“I have a son who's 16, who's … going to read much more what's on the Internet, and much more on blogs than he is in a newspaper or what's in a book. And what he's going to read is going to be glib. It is going, generally, to be profane. It's going to be quick. …
“There are some good blogs out there, but I think they are very, very few and far between. I think the quality of the writing, generally, is despicable.
NHL v. Derby
NBC has a plan should Saturday's 1 p.m. EDT Colorado Avalanche-Detroit Red Wings game go into overtime and conflict with the network's Kentucky Derby coverage, which starts at 4 p.m.
NBC will stay with hockey and air the first overtime period, after which it will leave to pick up the Derby, although the NBC stations in Denver and Detroit will stick with the hockey game.
For the rest of the United States, the hockey telecast will be transferred to Versus. The telecast also will be available on NBCSports.com and NHL.com. In Canada, TSN will carry the game.
– CBC drew 1.662 million viewers for its Montreal Canadiens-Philadelphia Flyers telecast on Wednesday, edging RDS, which had an audience of 1.631 million.
– Rogers Sportsnet has relocated to the Rogers campus on Jarvis Street in Toronto.
– There is talk, but no confirmation, that Sportsnet personalities will return wearing shirts and ties in September.
– TSN's first telecast of the men's world hockey championship is at 3:30 p.m. EDT Friday, Canada-Slovenia.
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