Bob Costas, a week after demonizing the state of online sports punditry, called up Deadspin's Will Leitch to clarify. While his efforts to clear the air will be commended (as they should be), I find myself still a bit unsatisfied.Here is Costas's most clear explanation of his point:
"My commentary was aimed solely at a portion of Internet sports discourse, an unfortunately large portion, that consists of nothing more than potshots, ad hominem arguments, ignorance and invective. ...Sure, we'll all agree a lot of "Internet sports discourse" sucks. But guess what? A lot of television sports discourse sucks. And a lot of radio sports discourse sucks. And, surprising as it may seem to someone raised on the medium, a lot of print sports discourse sucks.
I was absolutely not saying that most or all bloggers were losers. It just seems so often that commenters use insults in the place of arguments. ... But forgive me for not placing the exact same value on an comment on a political blog that I would to something said by Ted Koppel."
Costas admits his stances can be (at least partly) attributed to "a generational thing." And that'd be OK. But before you go branding a new generation "losers" and "idiots," you should probably understand what you're talking about. Costas, by lumping the wholeness of sports blogs in with lowest-common-denominator commenters on some random newspaper website, clearly does not. We don't lump Costas in with Bret Michaels and Flavor Flav, after all.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-17-2008 @ 6:10PM
Brace said...
The truth is that he is right. Bloggers like you allow flamers to leave offensive comments that do nothing to advance the topic of the post or even enlighten the reader about anything except the joylessness of the commenter. I say if people must leave comments like 14 year olds, then they should be treated like 14 year olds.
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3-17-2008 @ 8:30PM
discostu said...
I'm glad Bob Costas walked it back a little, but frankly this is quite a telling example because it does relate to the political world and elite journalists' opinions of the "non-elite". Does Ted Koppel, by being Ted Koppel, necessarily have more information or a better argument than a random internet poster? No, he (probably) has more access, but his Koppel-ness does not make him more credible, arguably, than said random poster. It just makes him more famous. One could argue that he is more accountable, but in examining that assertion, has Koppel paid any price in credibility for being wrong about things? Do elite media figures lose credibility in the eyes of of the average fan for being wrong? Arguably no. See Time Russert, Chris Matthews, etc. and predictions about the success of war, Iraq. Doesn't Stephen A Smith still have a job? Isn't Sam Smith still considered credible by elite NBA media people despite his ludicrous mountain of baseless rumors? Doesn't this start to look more like a protection racket than accountable analysis?
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3-17-2008 @ 10:59PM
sludgeworm said...
Let me see... Bedpan got the Costas scoop...interesting
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3-18-2008 @ 3:59AM
paul said...
It would be unfair to lump all bloggers into the same boat but I myself would have to say that many of the "savvy sports minds" on the AOL blogs are less than impressive - I'm not lumping you in there, Ziller, fear not.
That said, as often as not, bloggers on AOL just seem to have nothing better to do- their stuff is, at best, National Enquirer type material.
Its also interesting the amount of offensive responses allowed while seemingly censoring others who simply disagree with AOL blogger "experts" (pardon me while I laugh).
These blogs are hardly Pulitzer Prize material but can entertain. No need to confuse these blogs with high brow journalism but they often give a forum for Joe Blow to make a comment- thats great.
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3-18-2008 @ 10:20AM
Ryne Nelson said...
Costas had no need to clarify. He was entirely correct about the majority of the Internets. Yet, I respect Costas even more for responding to DeadSpin. He truly carries himself very well and comes off as very candid and honest in the interview.
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