LEARNING THROUGH REPETITION: OBSTINATE JOURNO EDITION
Blogging is not reporting. Blogging doesn’t do just one thing. Blogging is not reporting. Blogging is what you make it. Blogging is not reporting. Blogging doesn’t do just one thing. Blogging is not reporting. Blogging is what you make it.Blogging is not reporting. Blogging doesn’t do just one thing. Blogging is not reporting. Blogging is what you make it.Blogging is not reporting. Blogging doesn’t do just one thing. Blogging is not reporting. Blogging is what you make it.Blogging is not reporting. Blogging doesn’t do just one thing. Blogging is not reporting. Blogging is what you make it.Blogging is not reporting. Blogging doesn’t do just one thing. Blogging is not reporting. Blogging is what you make it.Blogging is not reporting. Blogging doesn’t do just one thing. Blogging is not reporting. Blogging is what you make it.Blogging is not reporting. Blogging doesn’t do just one thing. Blogging is not reporting. Blogging is what you make it.
It would take typing that a few hundred more times to drive home the point to Jason Whitlock that blogging is not journalism, and you don’t need that. (As you already understand, since you’re reading this, and likely naturally savvy to the notion that EDSBS will not bring you the verified truth, and will instead bring you mostly songs about Norm Chow singing in autotune about having sex with a dolphin.)
Whitlock and many older sports journalists fail to understand this point, so we will state it in clear English. It will be clear of the fancy parentheticals, interesting adjectives Orwell loved so much, or any of the sort of literary devices J-school seeks to beat out of you for no good whatsoever (besides cheap simile and hackneyed metaphor. Those are fine, apparently.)
1. A blog is a medium. A blogger is someone who uses it.
2. Bloggers can do very different things with that medium, and set their own goals. They are not, on the whole, journalists who want your salad fork. (Or pudding shovel, as it were. Damn you fancy parenthetical!)
3. Stop referring to them in a blanket sense without providing specifics. We would not do the same to journalists.
Example!
Sports reporters are lousy writers and worse thinkers.
Clearly unfair, and inaccurate writing based on evidence. This is much, much better:
Jay Mariotti is a lousy writer and can’t use think gland want candy.
There we are. Far more accurate, and very, very specific. We don’t care if Whitlock wants to reinvent sports journalism, because as he states to a degree of accuracy, we are not sports journalists. Repeating the oppositional canard that bloggers are sports reporters with frontal lobotomies and brimming bowls of Ritalin is tiresome and inaccurate. After all, if we wanted either of those we’d have a subscription to the AJC in its charming and burnable 20th century form, and none of us would be having this discussion in the first place.
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1
www.southbendblarney.com says:
Orson,
How dare you and other bloggers make things entertaining and fun. The sports world has no place for those things, and if it is enjoyment you are seeking, than I suggest you embrace Hulu…
May 8th, 2009 at 11:00 am
2
TCOAN says:
Jason Whitlock is a self-congratulatory douche.
May 8th, 2009 at 11:17 am
3
jd4au says:
His digression into what started as a backhanded compliment towards bloggers is a little strange.
However, I took his point to be more of a swipe at his own by stating that sports blogging has erupted in popularity because the sports “journalists” have completed vacated the field of — well – journalism, especially when it comes to taking on the WWL. Let’s face it, print journalists don’t break stories anymore in the sports world. Journalists just follow up on what they read right here on the interwebs, the only true and unadulterated marketplace of ideas.
May 8th, 2009 at 11:38 am
4
gosouthgohard says:
The relevant graf:
“For the most part, bloggers can’t do it. They just don’t know enough. Their instincts are horrible. They’d never think to wonder whether a writer would leak a coaches name as a job candidate as a favor for information down the line so the coach could leverage his current school into a fat raise. And if a blogger did think of it, he/she would be unlikely to have the wherewithal to do the necessary reporting.”
I think that the important point here is that you can’t just say “for the most part” and then shit on an entire group of people, especially in a column in which you call someone else out for being disingenuous.
May 8th, 2009 at 11:58 am
5
Flatlander says:
I don’t even know where to start with this article. But last I checked, no traditional journo ever brought me Tom Brady versus Galactus, a far more enjoyable piece of writing than anything Mitch Albom ever belched out.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
6
chuy says:
He may be confused regarding the concept of blogging and bloggers, but calling out Lupica and Albom in one swipe more than makes up for it…
May 8th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
7
Year2 says:
“Mariotti doesn’t get the credit he deserves for inventing sports blogging.”
Excuse me? Blogging has been around in some form for more than a decade. It was inevitable that sports blogs were going to happen because sports suits the medium extraordinarily well, and I’d imaging someone was out there blogging about sports in some corner of the internet before Mariotti even knew what it was.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
8
DevilGrad says:
And by “inventing sports blogging,” I gather Whitlock meant “belching half-assed, under-sourced opinions in print at a level of accuracy, decency, and wit well below what I ascribe to current generation bloggers.”
May 8th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
9
AlanInDC says:
I can safely say I am gunning to take Whitlock’s crown as most notable Ball State alum. He can, however, remain the champ in the super pudgy heavyweight division, and he is most certainly allowed to retain his Hot Dog, Chicken Wing, and Hooker eating crowns.
Most that have followed Whitlock, or Shitlock, recognize who he is… a self inflated pompous doucheblimp that occasionally will put something up thought provoking.
Oh… and apparently Shitlock likes to read the blogosphere pretty thoroughly considering he threatened to sue us over this… http://overthepylon.blogspot.com/2009/01/superwhitlock-explains-universe.html
May 8th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
10
Mr. Egger says:
Actually Orson, you missed a very salient point that Whitlock may have been taken as a universally understood part of his argument. And that is an ever increasing number of bloggers are journalists, because many journalists no longer have jobs at newspapers.
Unfortunately, when KC Star goes under, Fox Sports will still give his fat ass a place to spout opinions from.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
11
Mr Dizzle says:
Best line of the article:
Kerry invited five or six newspaper heavyweights to testify, including my hero, former Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon, the creator of the most important show in the history of television, “The Wire.”
Emphasis mine. That’s like saying Matt Hasselbeck is the most important quarterback in the history of quarterbacking. He’s ok, but damn! Hyperbole much?
May 8th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
12
andrew says:
get some, Orson. Whitlock’s agita is proof that you are winning. Let him bloviate and pontificate his way into complete irrelevance. Hopefully his last paid-for column will be an explanation of why he so hates Charlie Weis. Jealousy, perhaps? Unrequited love? So hard to know…
May 8th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
13
sb says:
Whitlock’s comparison between journalists and bloggers is similar to the hookers on one side of the street only doing the missionary position while those on the other side willingly get on top or go doggie-style. When print goes south, he’ll assume the position quickly enough to maintain his income…
May 8th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
14
westbrooke says:
I read a Whitlock column occasionally to remind myself why speaking without thinking is generally a bad idea. I’d like to think that, despite his reach, he has no measurable influence on the thoughts of others.
May 8th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
15
BennyBeav says:
The article itself is a complete waste of time, which I guess is how we know it’s considered sports journalism, but the comments are outstanding.
Apparently this article was so great that Whitlock deserves comparison to Socrates, but wait that is not high enough praise, for that we will need to compare him to … Ayn Rand?
It seems Whitlock’s diatribe about the monopolistic and fascist control of information being wielded by ESPN was a little too subtle for some of his readers.
May 8th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
16
Anonymous IV says:
The article had a promising start, but when the generalizations about bloggers began to be stated that is when credibility is lost . Engaging in an ad hominem attack would be easy since Whitlock himself pointed out his own faults. But sloppy research and generalizations, especially when the person is disseminating information, is irresponsible behavior.
May 8th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
17
Big Jon says:
sb at # 13 has the best metaphor I’ve heard in months. Bravo.
And the only way I’d subscribe to a tangible version of the AJC is if they started having guest columnists like Hayley LaFontaine, Baron Von Greenback, and my all-time favorite, Launchpad McQuack: Sex Addict. Writing above a 4th grade level would also help.
May 8th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
18
DAve says:
“They wrongly believe I’m hostile toward ESPN because I split with/was fired by the network. I chose to liberate my mouth from ESPN because the network’s business relationships with all of the major sports leagues stand in the way of free, creative speech.”
There’s irony in here somewhere, dammit.
May 8th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
19
Ltrain says:
#9, I doubt David Letterman thinks Whitlock is the most notable….
May 8th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
20
tempebamafan says:
i hate the arrogant premise that newspaper and shitty magazine writers always trot out; that blog readers aren’t able to differentiate between journalism and gossip, and that we the ignorant people need them to provide us with quality journalism…. we do recognize quality writing and that is why we no longer participate as an audience to your shit papers and crap newspeak magazines.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
21
Milam says:
LOL @Whitock. AKA the go-to-guy anytime a white conservative wants to prove he’s not racist
May 8th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
22
That 5.0 Guy says:
@ Milam #21:
- Like Jim Rome? He’s got a black friend, really! He even lets him do the show occasionally!
On a more serious point, I do think that blogging has a journalistic aspect to it. However, I do have to say that it exists as a much deeper form of reverence to sports than what Fox, ESPN or any other network or newspaper really captures or presents.
Blogs like this are an excellent example in their innovative writing style and their approach. While each is homeristic in it’s own way, the truly successful blogs do something interesting and probably better developed than what exists in “mainline” sports media.
I would argue that what the complaints from established writers don’t stem from a concern for the pollution from untrained, journalistic writers but from the atmosphere that have developed with the advent of the internet. I think they are afraid because fans demand more objectivity than they are willing to give or that fans are being more critical and demanding from writers because the readers have better options online.
It’s become a bonding experienece on the internet to deride Peter King because not only is he inept as far as technology goes, but people in general would prefer a writer who isn’t a shill for a particular player (Farve) or franchise (Patriots).
Alright, they are fucking dinosaurs, the internet is the commet, and we’re all riding in the tailwind of the commet Dr. Stranglelove style. SORRY, I COULD BE SERIOUS NO LONGER.
May 8th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
23
AERose says:
Calling The Wire the most important show in the history of television is by no means hyperbole.
May 8th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
24
Alaska Hokie says:
“Stop referring to them in a blanket sense without providing specifics. We would not do the same to journalists. ”
Actually, you do. I don’t know how many times I’ve read some sort of crazy thing only Fox News or a newspaper in Bumfuck, Alabama, does and you guys have attributed it to “the media.”
“That’s what the media doesn’t get about blogging,” you say, while talking out the other side of your mouth about how awesome you are. Frankly, I love your attitude toward sports, but to say what you did above is about as hypocritical as the Bush administration.
May 9th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
25
NRBQ says:
I sure miss the 20th century AJC.
“Covers Dixie Like the Dew.”
A great roster of sports writers in the 70’s and 80’s. Ironically, several of them now work for the WWL, SI, etc.
One can now say about the AJC what has been said of my local rag for years. You can throw it into the air and read it before it hits the floor.
May 9th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
26
Stacy Kiebler Luvs Me says:
Whitlock AND Sports Blogs Fan Dept:
Maybe I’m nuts, but I like both Whitlock’s writing and various Sports Blogs (EDSBS, Deadspin, blah, blah, blah). In fact, I think Whitlock’s style is a bit blogger-ish, a bit unconventional, a bit fearless. (Not the bland straight-man type of sports reporting, or the “human-interest-sob-story” type writing.)
It’s like when I hear arguments which babes are preferable – blondes or brunnettes. I say why not both?!
Whitlock is the court clown saying the emperor has no clothes. Week in and week out he takes on the white elephants, such as Selena Roberts (pun intended), SI, ESPN and others. Like a good blogger, he goes after Albom, Lupica and others when it is merited.
I would send him a note, making him an honorary member of the blogger team!
May 10th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
27
Eric Angevine says:
I grew up in Kansas City.
Jason Whitlock built his national profile by:
1) Eating BBQ while “running” the KC Marathon
2) Waving homophobic signs in the press box
3) Espousing an unhealthy obsession with Jeff George
Amongst other stunts.
So where, exactly, does he draw the line here? I’m guessing at the point where sports blogging takes attention away from his redonkulous self-promoting behavior.
May 24th, 2009 at 8:15 am