According to ESPN employee Tony Kornheiser, “Newspapers are dead.” As the article points out, Kornheiser himself was a long time sportswriter for the Washington Post before he gained even wider exposure on the ESPN show pardon the interruption. If one clicks on the Dan Le Batard article linked in the above post, Dan Le Batard also gives his opinion on new media. The thing is, a lot of what Mr. Le Batard posts is strikingly similar to the readings we have discussed in class. Andrew Sullivan’s Why I Blog is very much echoed in Dan Le Batard’s blog post. In fact, I dare say he restates much of Andrew Sullivan’s argument, and makes it a more entertaining read for pop culture and sports fans. For example, Le Batard writes, “We’re afraid, man. For us and for you. Our beloved little turf — the one where we’ve poured so much of our self-worth — has been invaded by an army of Perez Hiltons with very few journalism rules and ethics..”
The fact is that the landscape of the media is changing, which is something that everyone has had to adjust to. There is no point in resisting the change because it is occurring at a very fast rate. A sportswriter, or a writer of any genre must do all that they can to reach the largest possible audience. Le Betard points out that the younger generation has “invaded” because people do not want scholarly literature anymore. Instead, they want fast, TMZ style information. One of the most interesting points he makes is that this applies to people young and old. Other ESPN employees such as ESPN’s Buster Olney says that the art of sports writing is getting lost in an effort to condense everything. Olney reasons that sports writing is losing the cool stuff. This article really does not paint any of the newer technology in a very good light. One other excerpt from the article that is worth pointing out is the quote by Buzz Bissinger where he rails against blogging specifically. “I think blogs are dedicated to cruelty; they’re dedicated to dishonesty; they’re dedicated to speed.” The article immediately points out how blogs recanted those statements but I would venture to guess it was because of the negative reaction. Buzz wrote Friday Night Lights which is a great novel, but he should probably read Authority 3.0 by Michael Jensen to freshen up his perspective a bit.
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