Fighting Terror With Terror

After our discussion yesterday regarding bloggers as 'internet terrorists' my thoughts immediately went to an encounter from last year documented on the HBO show Costas Now, hosted by Bob Costas. The topic of the now defunct show was relevant sports issues, and this particular episode dealt with the rise of the sports blog. Involved in the discussion were Cleveland Browns wide receiver Braylon Edwards, then www.deadspin.com Editor-in-Chief Will Leitch, and noted sports author Buzz Bissinger (he wrote Friday Night Lights among other works). I've included a clip from the show below (NOTE: STRONG LANGUAGE) but the main argument is that a) bloggers (as well as their commenters) have free reign to be slanderous and anonymous and b) sports blogs are killing off newspapers as more and more individuals are going online to get their sports info. Here's a direct quote from the author:

Blogs are a, "disgrace the written word. No one sweats over a sentence anymore, no one really cares if a sentence has good grammar or bad grammar. No one really cares if it has the right or wrong word. Blogs are all about opinion, all about getting in your face, and the fact that people love them says they're really not interested in facts, not interested in beautiful writing; they're just interested in having our own opinions certified.

"With the Internet, there's too much information out there, and we've become a very mindless country. I don't know how else to say it: We really revel in ignorance and disinformation."

Buzz comes off as an ass, but he is passionate about his work, and is upset that his colleagues and his work is being taken on the same level as internet bloggers. A real life example of what we discussed.