On Tuesday evening, Bob Costas hosted a segment on his HBO show Costas Now focusing on the internet and the impact of sports bloggers. The segment featured prominent media types, including Pulitzer Prize winning writer Buzz Bissinger and Deadspin.com editor and author Will Leitch. The fight that ensued was the live version of the slap fight that has been happening between mainstream media and bloggers.
There has been constant and unfair criticism of sports bloggers. ESPN's Michael Wilbon has spoken of his distaste for blogs, while many others have questioned the credibility of bloggers. Costas himself has even called bloggers "pathetic, get-a-life losers". But it's quite clear that these old school media guys are afraid of what they don't understand. And even worse, they don't try to.
During the Costas Now live panel discussion of blogger impact, Bissinger accused bloggers of sloppy journalism while he himself misquoted and incorrectly referenced various bloggers' work. Costas read statements that he attributed to a blogger when, in fact, they were made by a blog's commenter. They generalized blogs as irrelevant gossip without acknowledging the blogs that provide accurate and well written content. Both of these respected and decorated members of the media represented examples of the reckless journalism they claim bloggers bring to reporting. Neither one bothered to understand the very medium they were criticizing.
What they, and most blog critics, fail to understand is that both mainstream media and blogs can co-exist peacefully. Bloggers aren't set out to replace print journalists. They exist to add commentary and color to the news that is reported in print and online every day. Readers don't use blogs to replace the news they get from the mainstream. They use it to add substance.
Blogs aren't going to kill print journalism, print journalism is killing itself. Readers can get more information on NYTimes.com than they can in the paper's print edition. As technology changes, so must the media; bloggers saw it coming and created a new medium.
Consider it media Darwinism. The best writers will survive, regardless of whether their words appear in print or online. What is going to happen is that the poor journalism that existed previously due to a lack of choices is going to fade away. Blogs aren't destroying journalism, they are forcing it to improve.
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Costas is intelligent, articulate, humble, and( I dare say) artistic. Now that doesn't mean he's right, but his opinion on the subject carries more weight than that of, say... a blogger?
This reminds me of when Punk and New Wave were starting and all the established musicians were putting it down, 'they can't play' or 'they only know 3 chords' etc. The establishment afraid of change, of people doing it themselves. I don't read sports blogs, not a fan of sports in general. But like music, some writing is good some is crap. You don't like it, don't read it. Or write your own.
Costas is a joke!
Sports blog commentators tend to be very sophomoric. They kling to their team/player like the neocons cling to Bush - no room for facts to get in the way of emotions..
Bob Stepontopofus and George Costas would be better served to nix their napoleon complexes.
and John McCane is 5 feet 4 inches "tall".
Someone should disconnect Bob Costas' internet service so he will be free to indulge in his endless soliloquies and wax rhapsodic about the Great American Hero Mickey Mantle and the days when baseball was "more than a game". The so-called purists could learn a thing or two from some of the lowly bloggers whom they disdain.
Have you ever read sports blogs?
Costas is correct. These people are absolute morons and should be exposed for being just that.
Now, now let's not get into a hissy fit because he dissed some bloggers. Especially since bloggers diss everyone all the time, and often with the most meager research to back up their spew.
So let's cut through the crap here: Most sports 'journalism,' whether TV, print - or web - sucks. It's mostly spew and vitriol, or slavish fan-ism - and sports bloggers tend to be the worst.
Costas is one of the best - and only - actual journalists in sports. He's more knowledgeable about sports and sports issues than 99.999 percent of his compatriots and readers, and he's way more knowledgeable, with far more direct contact with sports figures, than your average blogger on their self-appointed throne.
Sometimes the internet just doesn't get it.
Excellent! I agree 100%. I love finding the rare common-sense comment out here in crazy webland - or lets just use the same method which created the term "blog", and call this area what it is: "bland".
The discussion was interesting because it is a microcosm of what is wrong with news media and debate with bloggers. See, the direct contact with sports figures is a version of the EXACT argument Brian Williams used to defend himself on the Pentagon "analysts" scandal cheerleading the war. So Costas has access ... that also means he has friends and people he will not be objective about (like the late Mickey Mantle). Bissinger in particular just didn't get it. The increase of voices is a good thing, and certainly it is only in blogland that stories like FISA or the Pentagon analysts is really being chased.
I've known Bob Costas for many years and you give him too much credit. He is in over his head on a Tuesday.
Hmmm, I thought Costas was a Dr. Seuss character.
Costas works in an industry which at once touts free market philosophy and strives for media consolidation. The result is a lower journalistic standard, one which considers itself beyond reproach. Bloggers, on the other hand, give them something to look down upon with disdain, because they are now doing the work that Bob and his ilk can't do. Even if he has a clue, one can't expect him to admit it.
Oh come on "journalists" have been reckless for years. That zinging sensation that buzzes thru their body is their high. To think there were serious, staid journalists who only reported unbiased facts is naive. Everyone has an agenda. Everyone.
Costas shouldn't worry his pretty little head. Soon the networks and the corporations that own them will hire(purchase) the bloggers that pester them. I believe this is called co-opting. Then, when the poor blogger gets used to the $500K salary, they will quietly nudge him in the direction they want him to go. And go he will. Just as Brian Williams, Charles Gibson, and Katie Couric all sold their viewers out by embracing Pentagon propaganda, so too will the bloggers sell out their readers. Is this a great country, or what?
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Posted May 1, 2008 | 02:08 PM (EST)