He’s managed in the space of one premium cable roundtable chat, to make Will Leitch seem like an a thoroughly reasonable, if not likeable character by comparison.
Of course, Buzz has already demonstrated that he’s out of his fucking mind.
He’s managed in the space of one premium cable roundtable chat, to make Will Leitch seem like an a thoroughly reasonable, if not likeable character by comparison.
Of course, Buzz has already demonstrated that he’s out of his fucking mind.
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Jeff Johnson wrote a terrific post about this, and got off a great line about Bissinger being “offended by the internet.” That’s pretty much it.
Still, I type on. Bissinger wrote a great book in Friday Night Lights — if I ever write anything in my life, fiction or nonfiction, as good as that book, I’ll be incredibly proud and, frankly, surprised. But his recent stuff has been terrible — just totally lazy and retrograde and phoned-in — and that the-internet-is-full-of-pajama-clad-weenies shit is as played coming out of his mouth as it is out of anyone else’s, his one brilliant credit notwithstanding. I can’t believe his douchey posture throughout this segment, and I can’t believe that he lets himself get away with his proud, belligerent ignorance. And poor Leitch just seemed totally ambushed by the whole thing; it wasn’t hard to feel bad for the guy.
I have no doubt that there are a bunch of fucking terrible sports sites out there, and I think Deadspin’s pretty well among them. I also have no doubt that Bissinger has never visited any of them. What a fucking clown.
Holding Leitch accountable for the “dumbing down” of society is the kind of hyperbole I might’ve encouraged at one time or another. But doing so with a straight face requires ignoring hate radio or much of the NY Post sports section. And given Buzz’ hard-on for Sid Rosenberg, this seems like he’s being rather selective.
Bissinger’s concern for his son is quite touching, but I’ll submit that if Buzz Jr. is really spending more time on the net than reading books or newspapers, that’s Buzz’ fault more than Will’s. Or at least he ought to be directed to a better blogroll. It’s all well and good for Costas to remind us that not-all-blogs-suck, but if the host can’t even drop one of their names — and Leitch, once again, is the blogosphere’s sole representative — what are the kids to think?
Should it be pointed out, for instance, that TMZ.com, is not strictly a sports blog?
B.B. gets minor props for pointing out that Leitch’s claim that a Matt Leinart bong pic “humanizes” the horny QB is utter boo-shit. However, it oughta be enough for Will just to claim such snapshots are funny. There’s an actual journalistic tradition in poking fun at the rich and famous, and if Buzz finds it particularly cruel, he might be shocked to learn Page Six predated both the internet and Deadspin.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here —- this will be the first and last time the writing of Big Daddy Drew is compared —- favorably or not — to the work of W.C. Heinz on a national TV program.
I think its great how in the process of defending themselves on tv from outraged establishment types, previously snarky soon-to-be co-opted establishment bloggers are falling all over themselves to admit that the internet is flawed and how we can all do better and although sure some internet writing is shitty that doesn’t include them. This “defending the blogger medium” sanctimony also deserves its comeuppance, though not from Costas.
But Will Leitch doesn’t represent me. Who will represent the under-read blogs that only attract hits by the hundreds, particularly when they run irresponsible libelous posts about debbie clemens?
Sure angrymeanfrightened Costas and Buzz are scared. It’s not because this trend of glorified diarists is getting out of control, but because the newspaper biz is fucked and the paid media has put themselves on autopilot for so long they can’t compete in their own backyards. At the worst, idiotic ex-jock commentators suffocate most sports broadcasts. This is particularly noticable now that we all have to pay ginormous cable bills just to see games that i swear once were free. Just listen to your average color commentator and find me some genuine insight. Or let the “Budweiser Hotseat” enhance your fan experience.
Sports media has no one to blame, it fucked itself. Or rather, it Joe Bucked itself. Of course we took matters into our own hands.
It’s also not as though the blogosphere has anything close to a monopoly on what Buzz calls “journalistic dishonesty”. When Leitch gets his facts wrong, he’s sufficiently quick at issuing a retraction. Just like the LA Times.
What galls me is that Bissinger opened the whole thing with a tirade about someone on Deadspin writing about a professional athlete’s man boobs. I guess the big question is, does the guy have tits or what? Do they impede his play? Would one less trip to the buffet actually end up helping his ballclub in the dog days of August? Is it something that’s honestly on every fan’s mind? And did Bissinger’s newspaper sportswriting kin down in Philly NEVER secretly mumble to one another that John Kruk was a fat fu–, er, rotund individual? What about Greg “RIBS” Luzinski? Of course, they would not do that in print. Heavens no. That space is/was reserved for piousness about America’s pasttime, not honesty.
An example of why Joe Posnanski is so much better than either Bissinger or Leitch. There’s nothing wrong with them a little humility and/or disinterest in attention received wouldn’t cure.
Mr. For-Me makes a bunch of good points, I think, but the one that resonates for me the most after watching that clip is the one about how entitled and out-of-shape the sports media has become. If you can’t get a decent discussion from TV sports media or from much print journalism, then that’s not something that bloggers should be blamed for. Fucking Christmas Ape or your most favorite member of Deadspin’s Frat-Dog Inner Circle doesn’t make Wallace Matthews write the way he does; Wally’s chromosomal abnormalities and unexamined racial biases handle that quite well.
And Posnanski’s thing is fucking great, and a good example of why print media, and writing-about-things as a whole, isn’t going to stop existing: it’s fun to be around intelligent people, and there are still some awesome writers writing about sports. Posnanski — and Dave D’Allesandro and Bryan Burwell and whoever your favorite magazine or newspaper writer is — are smart, searching writers who can put a sentence together, and as long as there are people who like to read, those guys will be read. How much longer that will be is, sadly, uncertain. But the idea that Bissinger and other incautiously canonized members of the brand-name sportswriter pantheon are threatened by something like Deadspin says more about them — both their sense of entitlement and the intellectual laziness that comes with it — than it does about blogs.
A French filmmaker (I think Robert Bresson) once said that the only way to criticize a film is to make another one, and blogs are very obviously (to me) in that tradition; yelling profanities from a douchey lean, as Bissinger does, isn’t being a part of that conversation, and I think it comes from a fear that he can’t hang anymore (thus his continued mentions of his age and experience). If Bissinger ever decides to try hard again, he could probably write something great again. But the money’s too good writing profiles of Don Imus and transcribing LaGenius’s genius, I guess. One line from that weird Imus profile (they both manage to come off like huge assholes; it’s very new journalism) comes to mind: Imus saying “I talk to millions of people every day. I just like it when they can’t talk back.”