Costas Now a/k/a Bissinger Blow Up

[A-Tex Devil]

Anyone catch Buzz Bissinger (writer of Friday Night Lights) lay into Will Leitch (creator of Deadspin) last night on Costas Now?

Fan of Deadspin or no, that had all the appearances of an ambush by Costas and Bissinger on Leitch. Leitch fought the good fight but never had a chance. Hopefully most people saw it for what it was.

This whole rampage by mainstream journalists against blogs is quite fascinating. At it's very base, it's "professionals" railing against plain old "fans" (their readership) that just want to report the news as well, and now have the access and opportunity. Sure, there are some irresponsible blogs out there. But there are some irresponsible journalists as well. I think there is plenty of room for mainstream sports media and blogs to work in parallel, but the visciousness of Bissinger's attack last night reeks of a "raging against the dying of the light" attitude. Anyway, I have more thoughts on the matter but was curious if anyone else saw it.

[Mal]

I saw that, too, and was unable to turn my eyes away from the train wreck. Bissinger is a good writer, but he looked like a pretty small person last night. He was practically frothing at the mouth. His ranting did a disservice to his profession, and will turn more people away from print media than bring them back. By far. If you want to portray your medium as the one where adults and responsible people rule, where you can't stoop to petty anger and ill-informed ranting with no one to answer to, you shouldn't go on HBO and vomit up a condescending, expletive-laden hissy-fit all over the place.

I think deadspin is pretty much worthless, and Leitch seems like kind of a weasel. He can say what he wants on TV but there's no question what he's going for with his site, that it aims very low and that he allows it to be that way. I think it's deplorable he has so much readership, but I'm guessing his hits are through the roof today because of Bissinger.

It's too bad they didn't have a better blog writer to present what internet-based sportswriting can be. Take just the baseball realm, where almost every team now has some fan who's a serious sabermetrician writing a blog with analysis that puts the local paper's beat writer to shame. Either because that guy's stuck in the past and thinks the game's still in the '70's and obsesses over steroids, or because he's too busy actually reporting and producing the news analysts get to analyze to spend time churning win-shares and VORP columns.

Even someone like Bill Simmons would do. There's a guy who came from a print background and changed to the web, who has a distinctive voice and perspective (it's gotten to be a tiring one for me and I don't read him anymore, but there's no denying he's a different breed of sportswriter that appeals to a different generation), and a huge readership, and doesn't go out there slandering everyone with nothing to back it up.

Anyway, your point is right on. There is just as high a ratio of insipid garbage in your average print paper's daily sports opinion columns as there is on the net. The writing tends to be atrociously pedestrian, the tone bitter and cynical, the humor groan-inducing, the ideas recycled to the point where you can read the first graph and know how it ends. For every 1 Frank Deford there's 15 of Pat Reusse and Jay Mariotti and the rest. And the comment sections on newspaper online sections and ESPN.com are just as bad, if not worse, than the reader comments they tried to hang on Leitch.

My only takeaway from the segment was a newfound respect for Braylon Edwards. He's now my favorite WR in the NFL. Well-spoken, modest, kept his cool, thoughtful.

[A-Tex Devil]

I take Deadspin for what it is... a jumping off point to the blogosphere that leads me to other blogs. Occasionally, those other blogs end up in my daily reading (EDSBS, the Big Lead, Awful Announcing). It's basically become the hub of the sports blogosphere leading readers to other destinations, and it always gives credit to the other writers.

That being said, Deadspin (as a collective) has written some pretty insightful stuff in the past. The "Big Daddy Drew" guy they kept mentioning on HBO has written a bunch of great stuff. More to the point, I've never considered Deadspin irresponsible in the same manner as TMZ or Gawker.

The best thing I saw written today in response to Buzz Bissinger's attack was at FireJoeMorgan.com (where, incidentally, one of the writers is none other than Dwight's cousin Mose Schrute and was apparently interviewed before the Bissinger incident on Costas live). Here's the link. Warning -- profanity. Buzz Bissinger wouldn't approve unless you are saying aloud on HBO!!

http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2008/04...-internet.html

Best quote:

"Picking a random blog comment and wielding it as a club to bash "blogs" is like picking a random romance novel off an airport bookstore shelf and saying, "This book sucks. $%&* you, Tolstoy -- your medium is worthless!""

Edited to say -- Braylon did come off well, but I bet he was calling his agent afterwards asking what the hell did yo uget me into this mess for?

[Duvall]

The best thing I saw written today in response to Buzz Bissinger's attack was at FireJoeMorgan.com (where, incidentally, one of the writers is none other than Dwight's cousin Mose Schrute and was apparently interviewed before the Bissinger incident on Costas live). Here's the link. Warning -- profanity. Buzz Bissinger wouldn't approve unless you are saying aloud on HBO!!

http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2008/04...-internet.html

Best quote:

"Picking a random blog comment and wielding it as a club to bash "blogs" is like picking a random romance novel off an airport bookstore shelf and saying, "This book sucks. $%&* you, Tolstoy -- your medium is worthless!""

Except that, at least in respect to Deadspin, it's complete BS. No site panders more to its degenerate commenters than Deadspin. Trying to claim that Leitch isn't responsible for the depraved ranting of the blog's commenters is like claiming that a dog owner isn't responsible when his pet craps on the sidewalk.

Leitch is a joke.

[A-Tex Devil]

Except that, at least in respect to Deadspin, it's complete BS. No site panders more to its degenerate commenters than Deadspin. Trying to claim that Leitch isn't responsible for the depraved ranting of the blog's commenters is like claiming that a dog owner isn't responsible when his pet craps on the sidewalk.

Leitch is a joke.

I think the point was that picking one comment off of on blog (whether or not that particular blog is "bad" for sports media or not) isn't a reason to say that sports blogs as a whole are bringing down society -- which is essentially what Bissinger said based on the comments he plucked from Deadspin: "I think that blogs are dedicated to cruelty, dedicated to journalistic dishonesty... etc." "Blogs are the complete dumbing down of our society." etc. etc.

Bad blogs maybe -- just like bad TV, bad movies, bad magazines, etc....

[Duvall]

I think the point was that picking one comment off of on blog (whether or not that particular blog is "bad" for sports media or not) isn't a reason to say that sports blogs as a whole are bringing down society -- which is essentially what Bissinger said based on the comments he plucked from Deadspin: "I think that blogs are dedicated to cruelty, dedicated to journalistic dishonesty... etc." "Blogs are the complete dumbing down of our society." etc. etc.

Bad blogs maybe -- just like bad TV, bad movies, bad magazines, etc....

That's fair. I was just noting that Deadspin is, in fact, dedicated to cruelty, journalistic dishonesty and the complete dumbing down of society. Bissinger's mistake was in assuming that all bloggers were as bad as Leitch.