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  • It's not bloggers v. newspaper columnists anymore, it's good v. bad


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    A funny thing happened at the office yesterday. A colleague of mine at the Score who writes a popular and well-written blog about baseball decided to Fisk an article written by a baseball columnist for a popular Toronto-based newspaper (just Google it and spare me having to name-drop).

    A “Twitter battle” ensued, with the offended columnist tweeting about “modern sports media who can't do, so they attempt to chop up work of others. Lazy.” This is the lingering battle cry among many in print sports media—that newspaper sportswriters uncover stories while bloggers rip off their “hard work.”

    I read these Tweets with some amusement. I wrote about this before for A More Splendid Life, but it bears repeating here. I believe it’s important in today’s sports media culture to make a distinction between sports journalists and sports writers, rather than newspaper columnists and bloggers.

    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]

    Sports journalists spend much of their day out of the office (or home) in search of a story. They make phonecalls, they work their sources, they uncover behind the scenes information you won’t read about anywhere else. It’s hard work and often requires the resources of a big media organization (although not always; see CSN’s Ben Knight). And being a sports journalist doesn’t just mean “having press access”; often so-called sports “journalists” go through the motions reacting to player quotes and making the most pedestrian of conclusions, convincing themselves they’re doing hard work rather than taking advantage of the privileges granted by their title (in the soccer world, access isn't as much of an issue here for bloggers anyway).

    Sports writers on the other hand use their story-telling ability and expertise to try and develop a sports narrative, or make a cogent argument—the Globe and Mail’s Stephen Brunt is a good example. They normally dedicate the bulk of their time and resources (or at least they should) for the quality of their prose, rather than breaking the next huge story.

    That said, an excellent sports writer can often also be an excellent sports journalist. Ideally, there should be some measure of overlap between the two. The point I’m trying to make here is that the notion that someone who writes a 750 word column on a sports subject using exactly the same fundamental resources available to any member of the sentient public, is not by virtue of being published in a newspaper automatically a sports journalist. You are what you do, not who you write for. You no longer get a pass for writing crap because it goes to press.

    Which brings me back to my colleague.

    Bloggers are no longer “amateurs”; many in the Canadian soccer scene now work for the man, doing largely the same kind of work they did before, only a lot more of it. Which is why the idea they’re lazy is laughable in the extreme. My colleague here files up to 2000 words a day, all them researched to a tee (bloggers are instantly accountable to the public for their work via comments sections, whereas columnists are accountable via Twitter). In addition, he also appears on podcasts and video discussion segments where he takes questions for the public.

    And, working for a major media organization, he often enjoys the same media priveleges as his newspaper colleagues. All of this is to say that what matters now is not newspaper versus blog—it’s bad versus good. It seems many in overseas media understand the distinction. I think here particularly of the Guardian and the Independent’s football coverage. The standard for writing for these is reflected in talent, not career connections. Hence the last few years have seen former bloggers join the writing staff for both papers. The Guardian in particular acknowledges the writing quality outside their own walls. In fact, the line between blogger and MSM “proper” journalist is quickly fading as more bloggers freelance for mainstream publications, usually attached to television, like Fox Soccer and ESPN Soccernet.

    All this means that if you’re a sports writer or sports journalist now, you are judged on quality alone. This is not a bad thing, and is a pretty good foundation on which the publishing industry can build in search of a way to make real money from digital print.

    Richard Whittall's column appears every Thursday. His work can be read daily on the Footy Blog at the Score.



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