I Am Not Outraged by Anything that Bob Costas Said

by John Morgan on Mar 15, 2008 10:15 AM PDT

If you've been anywhere in the sports-blogosphere you've probably read this quote:

"I understand with newspapers struggling and hoping to hold on to, or possibly expand their audiences, I understand why they do what they do," Costas said. "But it's one thing if somebody just sets up a blog from their mother's basement in Albuquerque and they are who they are, and they're a pathetic get-a-life loser, but now that pathetic get-a-life loser can piggyback onto someone who actually has some level of professional accountability and they can be comment No. 17 on Dan Le Batard's column or Bernie Miklasz' column in St. Louis. That, in most cases, grants a forum to somebody who has no particular insight or responsibility. Most of it is a combination of ignorance or invective."

What bothers Costas -- and he's not alone -- is Internet and talk radio commentary that "confuses simple mean-spiritedness and stupidity with edginess. Just because I can call someone a name doesn't mean I'm insightful or tough and edgy. It means I'm an idiot.

"It's just a high-tech place for idiots to do what they used to do on bar stools or in school yards, if they were school yard bullies, or on men's room walls in gas stations. That doesn't mean that anyone with half a brain should respect it."

I'm supposed to be outraged by this, but I'm not. For one, who cares? And for two, I can read. And because I can read I know that Bob Costas isn't talking about me or any of the bloggers I respect. He's talking about the rather massive group of bloggers who are losers, who do you use the access and anonymity the internet provides to be jerks and who don't have responsibility to an employer, or code of ethics or even their own name. If HawkPunch69 thinks "Timmay" Ruskell is an idiot and an ahole and cheaper than Carl Weathers and wants to share his misspelled, illogical opinions to the world, the internet allows that. And calls it blogging. I'm cool with that, but he is not me, is not any of the hundreds of skilled, intelligent writers who run blogs.

Maintaining a hive mentality, thinking an attack on any blogger is an attack on all bloggers, no matter how ignorant or puerile those other bloggers may be, is not the path to respectability. Respect will be earned writer by writer, post by post. So can we call off the blogger-Jihad? Calling someone an "asshat" every time they criticize bloggers for being "school yard bullies" is sort of self-defeating, don't you think?

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Comments

Just because you don't work for CBS

doesn't mean you can't be insightful or provide a service that people want or need.I come to FieldGulls because you provide an analysis that is not available anywhere else combined with the opportunity to share thoughts with other Hawks fans.

Costas made a mistake with his comments. Yes, it's true that a lot of blogs are riddled with asinine opinions and cheap shots. What Bob is missing is that there are lots of people with interesting perspectives on a topic that do not wish to be professional media. This blog is a gem and is certainly the exception to the rule, but that in no way justifies attacking an entire segment of the population just because someone in a blog somewhere called Costas a self-righteous oompa loompa.

Celebrated my 20th birthday on 02/05/2006. Not a good day.

by abender20 on Mar 15, 2008 10:31 AM PDT reply actions

I don't think he is attacking all blogs.

He's attacking the idea that a blog or blogger should think they should be respected because they run or write for a blog. Bloggers have taken his comment and made it absolute, all-encompassing, but I don't see that anywhere in what he said.

by John Morgan on Mar 15, 2008 10:35 AM PDT up reply actions

In fact, he's talking...

specifically about

"that pathetic get-a-life loser can piggyback onto someone who actually has some level of professional accountability and they can be comment No. 17 on Dan Le Batard's column"

I know that's not me or my readership so why would I be bothered by that? At the same time, I've read the comments sections on ESPN and FoxSports and know that they're literally thousands if not millions of people who do fit that description. I don't get why it has to be so us vs. them. Does an intelligent reader, writer or patriot really want to go to bat for every jerk who has internet access?

by John Morgan on Mar 15, 2008 10:41 AM PDT up reply actions

I suppose

that he was limiting his attack with that comment.
That being said, I started losing respect for Costas about the time that he made his comments about Barry Bonds personal. Not that I in any way believe Bonds deserves mercy (quite the contrary), but as a professional, he should have enough integrity to avoid that sort of conflict. Costas also should have avoided making this strong a statement regarding the blogosphere.

Celebrated my 20th birthday on 02/05/2006. Not a good day.

by abender20 on Mar 15, 2008 11:43 AM PDT up reply actions

If he made a mistake

it was only in not reiterating, "This isn't everybody." He'd already said it wasn't, but he might have been more emphatic. You know what? It's not a hanging offense.

by The Ancient Mariner on Mar 15, 2008 11:16 AM PDT up reply actions

He's attacking all blogs

Isn't that implicit in his comments? Isn't the only motivation he has for making these comments is an attempt to reinforce a disintegrating hierarchy? I understand John's sympathy, but Costas knows that more and more people are abandoning tv networks for blogs and he's worried about his career. He is trying to discredit you John, because he believes that a 10 second sound clip from Tiki Barber is the only expert analysis the public needs. His argument of "professional accountability" is an attack on sites like this one. What he's saying is that unless you publish under the banner of a news organization, your opinion is ignorant and shouldn't count. Oh and thank god for this blog! John is as good at this as Hugh Millen.

by HawkPunch69 on Mar 15, 2008 1:03 PM PDT reply actions

dammit

You beat me to it

Coach Owens = Scruffy's spell check

by Scruffy Lefty on Mar 15, 2008 2:29 PM PDT up reply actions

No, it isn't implicit in his comments

The word "most" rules that out.

by The Ancient Mariner on Mar 15, 2008 3:02 PM PDT up reply actions

You're doing it wrong.

DAMNIT!

by TIF @ Field Gulls on Mar 16, 2008 5:45 PM PDT up reply actions

My problem here is all this supposed...

accountability among professional journalists. Who was the Boston Globe journalist that got suspended for plagiarizing Mike Sando's blog? He wasn't punished because of some journalistic investigatory process. He was punished because readers and bloggers made it an issue with his paper, and what he did was undeniable. In fact, it has become common enough for writers to refuse to properly cite blogs and other fan sites for the research that they do that some prevalent sportswriters (e.g., Tim Marchman, the fine baseball writer at the NY Sun) have commented on it.

Costas' comments aren't untrue on the face, but he isn't motivated to comment by some loser writing "your team sucks" from his mom's basement. The market separates out those guys. They don't have any more impact on Costas' professional life than the losers who used to call him on Sports Open Line when I was growing up in St. Louis.

So in one since you're right John. Bob Costas isn't talking about you. However, I think he is motivated to talk because of you and the kind of work you do on this site. Guys like Costas trot out this tired "journalists have standards" trope to bag on the "losers in their mom's basement" because of the real competition papers are getting in their sports coverage from the likes of Football Outsiders, Scout.net, and Field Gulls. For Costas to compare the work of John Q. Schmuck to veteran quality sportswriters like Miklasz and LeBatard is a bit disingenuous.

What distinguishes the best of the blogosphere from traditional journalism isn't "standards and accountability." At this point it's almost exclusively access and budget. When it comes to the quality of the research and the writing, except for profanity, the bottom of the journalistic barrel is pretty bad. The blogosphere can compete flat out, and a lot of veteran journalists really resent it because as the newspaper industry continues to die a slow death.

"Those who fear disorder more than injustice inevitably produce more of both." -- Rev. William Coffin

by dcrockett17 on Mar 15, 2008 2:19 PM PDT reply actions

I get the sense that

the "not all blogs" part of Costas' tirade was merely not to offend professional writers who had started blogs with the likes of NFL network, the Mike Kahn's of the world. While I don't find it particularly offensive, he does paint most blogs with the same brush, and that is just pig-headed ignorance. His idiotic, all-encompassing generalisation of bloggers as "pathetic, get-a-life losers" that live in their mothers basement is ridiculous. The fact is that these people are usually only directed towards a blog when it makes denegrating remarks about them, and don't take time to read intelligent, well-informed writers such as John.

by ciarannh on Mar 15, 2008 3:49 PM PDT reply actions

From the context

"most" applies to a group which does not include professional writers--he's already dropped them from the discussion in his first sentence. He's also being somewhat sloppy, in that he's including people who comment on blogs along with people who have their own; that makes things rather muddier.

Given that, though, and the normal state of things on the big-media blogs, while Costas might be overstating his point, I don't think it's by much. This network of blogs is strong, and there are a fair number of other good team-based blogs--Dave Cameron at USSM has argued more than once that national beat writers ought to lean on (and credit) the good ones if they want to do their jobs well--but there's an awful lot of noise out there, too.

by The Ancient Mariner on Mar 15, 2008 4:26 PM PDT up reply actions

Pot meet Kettle

If HawkPunch69 thinks "Timmay" Ruskell is an idiot and an ahole and cheaper than Carl Weathers and wants to share his misspelled, illogical opinions to the world..."

You can't talk about misspelling bloggers in a rant titled, "I'M AM Not Outraged by Anything that Bob Costas Said."

You shouldn't be indignant when you can't even get the title right.

I'm not employed by the grammar police, I only do freelance private investigations of self-righteous tools.

by whitemale on Mar 16, 2008 3:55 PM PDT reply actions

Why are you here?

Coach Owens = Scruffy's spell check

by Scruffy Lefty on Mar 16, 2008 4:52 PM PDT up reply actions

Thanks for the correction.

I have no defense for the "self-righteous tools" argument. That's pretty trenchant.

by John Morgan on Mar 16, 2008 5:12 PM PDT up reply actions

There is still one negative thing to take away

from Costas' comments and that is he seems to be juxtapositioning ragging on the "bad" blogs and bloggers and thinking we owe our loyalties, our respect, and validifying the mainstream media newspaper column writers, etc.

By saying that those blogs take something away from the "established" writers (my emphasis, not his), he's also trying to make it sound as if those "established" writers are untouchable on accountability. I don't know about everybody else, but Bill Plaschke and others are paid an awful lot of money to be really shitty sports writers. I'll validate whomever I want and I'll respect whomever I want. Bob Costas going on a rant about bloggers doesn't take the blame away from those mainstream bozos.

DAMNIT!

by TIF @ Field Gulls on Mar 16, 2008 6:00 PM PDT reply actions

That, I agree with

by The Ancient Mariner on Mar 16, 2008 7:19 PM PDT up reply actions

I too am not offended by anything that

Bob Costas said. However, I do not understand where he is coming from whatsoever. First of all, the Internet and the blogosphere in particular is democracy in action and should be encouraged and not stifled. In this current age of media consolidation, the blog and blogger is a relief from the commercial crap that News Corp, GE, Disney, Time Warner, Sony, and National Amusements (I may be forgetting one) are pushing on their "audience" (consumer is much more accurate). For one, bloggers aren't trying to make a buck or sell a product, they have an allegiance to their beliefs and whatever topic they care enough about to invest the enormous time, money, energy, etc that it takes to put out material on a consistent basis. What really strikes me as somewhat insulting, is that Costas assumes that the reader cannot discern between well-written, well-informed blogs and comments and ones done by "idiots" from their mothers' basements. People don't read blogs just for the sake of reading blogs. People read blogs because they feel like they get a better perspective, or at least a different perspective than they are already exposed to. For example, Field Gulls supplements what I read in the PI and the Tribune as well as Football Outsiders, RotoWorld, Rivals, Scout, SI and (sigh) ESPN. BLOGS DO NOT TAKE THE PLACE OF TRADITIONAL JOURNALISM THEY ARE A SOURCE OF SUPPLEMENTAL ANALYSIS. I understand that the Seahawks beat reporter could never analyze the Hawks like John does. But that has more to do with the repercussion that the reporter would face from the Hawks in terms of access rather than journalistic integrity. Personally, I think access is somewhat overrated and precisely those journalists who just spit out a couple of names, dates, statistics, and quotes are the ones who feel threatened by blogs. I've never heard Maureen Dowd put down a blog (I'm sure there is also a worthy conservative columnist equivalent too, so no Dowd or NYT bashing).

Also, the so called idiots, are just that - idiots, and those of us that are not idiots dismiss them as such and pay no mind to their comments. I don't know why Costas would be so offended by people who make uninformed personal attacks or "bully" remarks and mention them in the first place. I understand that perhaps he is not so much offended by them as the fact that now they have a forum, but I would contend that there is nothing wrong with intermittent reminders that people are idiots. I find it keeps healthy cynicism alive and well. Furthermore, calling these people bloggers gives them a credence they do not have or deserve. For the most part, forums that I am a part of have moderators, and these moderators make sure that there is a level of decency in everything that is posted and displayed publicly. Repeat offenders are even banned. Now, what I really didn't like about what Costas implicitly did is that he grouped blogs with comment threads. That's just stupid and uninformed.

by man on soap box on Mar 16, 2008 10:07 PM PDT reply actions

What I believe

(Not the Steve Martin routine):

I'd put our money where our mouth is and say if Costas happened upon this blog, or almost any other in the Sports Blog Nation, that he'd see something different about both the commentators and the community. I don't think he's talking about us either. In fact to get a Sports Blog Nation blog you have to exhibit and maintain a level of discourse slightly more elevated than "Duuuuuh Yankees suck!"

Bloggers do not have to be journalists or columnists. That opens up a whole new set of rules -- or rather, abolishes a bunch of the old ones. The great bloggers take advantage of that freedom to create something new and beneficial; the subpar bloggers just masturbate with it.

We don't and should not take the place of journalism although I'd put John's analyses up against any other's. I prefer to think of ourselves as cultural supplements, and hopefully a cultural reference. The forward-looking journalists understand and respect that kind of blog.

At the same time, I really like what TIF said. Print journalists are not above contempt just because you can rub their words on your fingers. Sometimes they're just as empty as the junk bloggers; they just have a thesaurus nearby.

--Shrug

by Shrug on Mar 19, 2008 12:55 AM PDT reply actions