Because I absolutely love it when dinosaur Old Media types toss out tired, old cliches about sports blogs and bloggers---which they clearly don't understand at all, and often equate with infamous message board dipshits---I have to turn your attention to the giant collective sigh caused by Bob Costas.
I like Bob Costas. He's got a great voice, and he knows his shit. He's been a loud critic of Barry Bonds and all of his fellow cheaters in baseball, has ridiculed Terrell Owens and the other attention hogs in the NFL, and has been generally harsh as hell on the culture of stupidity in the NBA. To my knowledge he hasn't actually talked about hockey since 1992, but hey, I know my place as a puck fan.*
Anyway, Costas has weighed in on the whole "Blogs As False Controversy" topic with these tidbits of genius:
...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.
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.
Seriously? Costas, you're like a year (or more) late with this bullshit ignorant outburst.
Anyway, Will Leitch at Deadspin has registered his own disappointed response to The Short One. It's worth reading, but it's been said by most of us before. If you're interested in something a little harsher and with more invectives, try With Leather. Now that's some clever Photoshopping.
I'm sure there will be dozens of angry posts across dozens of angry sports blogs about Costas and his ignorance today. I'll just say this: what the hell does he care? What difference does it make to him? He's still pulling down six figures (or more) a year, right? Why can't other people sit at the table? Seriously, it's just sports.
Sports reporters and broadcasters think they're Moses or something bringing the heavy news down to us peons from on high. They get paid to talk about guys who throw balls around for a living. They're not that fucking important.
*By the way, reversing the letters to say "fuck pan" is funny.