Buzz Bissinger Rips Sports Blogging, Makes Fool Out of Self
There’s a good chance you’ve heard about this by now, but on Tuesday night, Bob Costas hosted an HBO special that examined the state of today’s sports media. Part of the program focused on the internet, and included a debate between Deadspin’s Will Leitch and Buzz Bissinger, the writer who penned Friday Night Lights (and maintains a strong anti-blog stance). Also involved in the conversation was Cleveland Browns wide receiver Braylon Edwards — and I, too, have little idea why Edwards was involved in a debate about internet discourse.
Bissinger quickly made it apparent that he would act in a classless, unfair manner towards Leitch and bloggers in general. Thankfully, rather than devolving to Bissinger’s moronic attitude during the debate, Leitch kept his cool and merely allowed Bissinger to reveal himself as a madman in the midst of complete meltdown. Here’s the clip (just be warned that Bissinger is quite the potty mouth):
Sad, really. A great author and journalist was reduced to a blithering fool when presented with the realities of today’s changing media. Bissinger could have remained civil, but alas, his fear of blogs as a rising medium of information and entertainment prompted him to completely lose his mind.
When Bissinger had finally shut up, you heard Leitch articulately respond to Costas’ criticisms of the blogosphere. Costas seems to view sports blogs as a type of “Wild West,” where anything goes, and writers and readers alike are dedicated to nonstop written lashings towards personalities in the sports world. However, as Leitch accurately pointed out, these sorts of blogs typically have a limited readership and lack credibility.
What’s disturbing is Bissinger’s apparent unwillingness to objectively examine the mainstream media; many of the criticisms he applied to blogs are more aptly associated with guys like Jay Mariotti, Woody Paige, Skip Bayless, Mike Lupica and Stephen A. Smith. Indeed, the mainstream media is hardly blameless for “cruelty” and “abusiveness” in today’s sports discourse.
Kudos to Leitch for letting Bissinger dig his own grave. Leitch faithfully represented everyone who reads, writes, and enjoys blogs, even though he wasn’t able to engage Bissinger in anything resembling a civil debate.
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3 Responses to “Buzz Bissinger Rips Sports Blogging, Makes Fool Out of Self”
April 30th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
What an entertaining watch. Hard to believe how close-minded some in the industry are. I know at the paper I work at that we’re constantly talking about how to integrate new media like blogs into our routine, and we in fact have multiple blogs that the paper runs. It’s an interesting argument, and one that will keep evolving, though I don’t think most of those conversations will go anything like this.
To Costas’ credit, I think he does a pretty good job of playing devil’s advocate here. He points out some flaws in Bissinger’s argument as well.
May 1st, 2008 at 11:38 am
Unfortunately, your video is no longer valid on youtube. I was able to see it, but edited as art.
Bissinger has points about blogs that do what he says they do. There are plenty of blogs out on the net that are worthless. What bothers me about him, is his generalizations of ALL blogs. Not only does he come off as elitist, but he acts as if the only REAL reporting being done is in newspapers.
Over the past several years, there have been many cases of reporters being caught plagerizing, slanting the news, and out and out making up the news. For anyone in the industry to hold their nose up to bloggers such as the ones here on MVN is ridiculous. Reporters are NOT unbiased. Does anyone really believe that you could cover a sport or even a contest and not develop a bias?
The truth is, bloggers are much more honest about their points of view, especially in the sporting genre. When reading any of the blogs here at MVN, it’s not hard to figure out the writers’ likes or dislikes, and it’s not hidden either.
May 2nd, 2008 at 6:56 am
“tone of gratuitous potshots and mean-spirited abuse?”
bob and buzz seem to have not read anything writted by jay mariotti or bill plaschke or mike lupica, to name a few
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