We all know how the internet works: it’s a giant web linking users on one end to another through information databases (and not a series of tubes). Blogging is probably the purest example of how the internet allows users to be privy opinions and new points of view. Sports blogging, though, often gets a bad rap because of all of the ‘idiots’ and ‘angry folks’ that maintain them. Nothing exemplifies this more than author Buzz Bissinger going on Costas Now across from former Deadspin editor Will Leitch. Blogging—good blogging, anyway—has evolved from its ‘mudslinging’ days to something new.
For the first time, journalists are being held accountable for the words they write (as well as the words they don’t).
Favoritism has always been an issue in getting to the truth of the matter in regards to sports journalism. Because the role of sports journalism often shifts between fact and opinion, news and entertainment, many sports journalists and personalities have long been able to play the “entertainment” card when they need to and the “news” card when they need to. This is the one overlying issue ESPN’s viewers and readers have with the company, and it is often the most addressed issue with their ombudsman.
The Baseball Writers of America (BBWA), the folks who are allowed to vote someone into the Baseball Hall of Fame, have always subscribed to a meaningless rule: no player should be a unanimous induction. No player has been, either. Babe Ruth wasn’t, Willie Mays wasn’t, and Ted Williams wasn’t. This tradition has long gone unchecked, because, before the internet, who would have the platform to call these writers out?
Unfortunately for Corky Simpson of the Green Valley News in Arizona and the BBWA member who inexplicably left Ricky Henderson off of his Baseball Fame Ballot, that platform exists.
Henderson’s career achievements require him to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, without question. The greatest leadoff hitter of his generation, and perhaps ever, is first eligible for Cooperstown this year. Corky Simpson did not put him on the ballot.
The Big Lead, among the most credible and commonly read sports blogs, took Simpson’s omission and lambasted it on January 7th, 2009. ESPN’s Rob Neyer also called out Simpson and word spread quickly. The next day, Simpson publicly admitted the omission was a mistake. His reason, according to the Green Valley News, was “I probably did it (the Hall of Fame list) too quickly.”
There were writers that left off Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, and Ted Williams, and they were not called out publicly, because there was no way for a sports fan to get a platform to spread their opinions. Nowadays, there is. So, where does it go from here?
I see this era in sports journalism consistent with the muckraking journalism that was common in the 1920s—the early days of newspaper and magazine reporting. Back in those days, investigative reporters would commonly expose injustices in society, usually perpetrated by large and unchecked companies and corporations. Those companies hated the journalists that exposed working conditions, wage discrepancies, and other issues prudent to that era because the companies were afraid it would hurt business. Today, we still have those journalists covering stories, issues and events, but the internet provides an avenue for citizen journalism and an attempt to hold journalists responsible for the content they write, and in some cases, don’t write.
This citizen journalism can be dangerous in the wrong hands, which is one of the reasons why so many sports journalists despise blogs. But there may be another reason… they may be scared.