Calling the widely read, oft-Googled Bleacher Report, “a content farm whose plowmen fly the fanboy flag, ‘All The News Fit to Steal.'”, the National Sports Journalism Center’s David Kindred applauds BR publishing an item so rotten, “this dreck makes me happy because, some wonderful day, readers will notice. They will notice what’s terrible and what’s terrific, yes, by damn, they will.”
The truly terrible, happy-making story was committed by TJ Corbs, who typed this thumbnail of himself: “Been watching sports in the Norheast (sic) Corridor and reading interweb newsgroups for many years. I just want to present my opinion without clogging up any newsgroups.” Corbs’s “story” grew from a teevee anchor idjit’s tweet of a Syracuse University basketball point-shaving rumor posted on a poker site’s message board. (I’ll wait while you re-read that last sentence.) Now that story has been taken off the site. Also, word is that TJ has been relieved of his farming implements. Even the poker-table gossipmonger has apologized for a post that he believed was, y’know, just trashtalk among reprobates.
A venture capitalist drops eight figures on BR while AOL sells FanHouse for chump change, $5 million. BR survives on the journalistic burglary of amateur typists while AOL ships out veteran editors and reporters. These developments could cause a romantic fool long in love with journalism to wonder if he ought to have lavished his affection on a more deserving subject, perhaps Mustang spinner hubs.