In Friday's Globe and Mail, William Houston wrote a column about blogs in sports.
It's obvious there are a lot of old-school reporters out there who can't stand blogs.
Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post is a hater of blogs. To quote Kornheiser, "you know, some people sit at home and they watch TV and they watch radio and they blog about certain things, and they think they know what they're talking about, and they think they have sources. They have no sources. They make stuff up. They're toads. They're little toads."
In December - Michael David Smith talked to Kornehiser's partner at the Post and at ESPN, Michael Wilbon. Mr. Wilbon hates blogs, saying, ""I'm old." Wilbon went on to tell Smith he felt blogs were inferior because of "no editing, no standards, no accountability."
I love the show Pardon the Interruption and I am a big fan of both Kornheiser and Wilbon. However, both of them come across as a bunch of grumpy, old farts that refuse to acknowledge that there's a new way doing things in the universe. I hate to break it to all those bitter, old, newspaper writers out there, but since the internet isn't going anywhere -- neither is the blog.
Sports fans in 2008 are not willing to wait around until the next morning to read someone else's take on what they just saw. If a modern fan was at a game or watching at home and they want to vent, they have an outlet. This means the average fan can read a blog and respond, or even write a blog themselves.
The world for sports' fans is changing at break-neck speed. Those ancient few who refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of the sports blog sound like the same people who said the internet was a passing fad.
If you blog, there is nowhere to hide. If someone doesn't like what you wrote, they will call you out; hence the massive popularity of the sports blog. Sports fans are not passive readers or viewers. They have opinions and want to be heard from. You can't do that reading a newspaper. You can do that when you read a blog. Maybe it pains guys like Kornheiser and Wilbon to admit this, but there are a lot of very intelligent and informed bloggers out there. I am constantly amazed at level of sophistication at some of the people who respond to my blogs.
Long live the blog and long live the sports fans who respond to them.
