(Will Carroll and I were working on pieces about the same subject and just before I decided to post this one, I noticed he had beat me to it. I suggest you read his offering that is below mine. Since he knows both the participants, he gives great insight. Mine is more of your typical blogger read and react. We don't have opposite views on the subject, but do have some differing points.)

After careful study, I realize that I am the exact connecting piece between mainstream media and the blogging world. I grew up delivering newspapers, reading them from front to back, and dreaming of becoming a columnist. I went to college to study journalism, tried giving free-lance writing a go, and then...gave up this dream because I had no interest in climbing a ladder which started with covering high school sports. I have an immense respect for the reporter who is just interested in delivering the basic facts of the event. I learned imy 5 W's and a H, but I always wanted to explore my creativity and had the narcissistic desire to share my opinion, if people wanted it or not. I decided to become a standup comedian...a job where it is all about me. Look, I've never claimed I don't have attention issues.

While my main focus became coming up with funny, edgy material thaet makes people laugh, I never gave up my sports focus. I've regularly appeared on local and national syndicated radio shows. I've written comedy sketches for TV. I never felt a great sense of creative freedom, though, until I started blogging. It is at the Juice Blog where I can offer up my thoughts, without having corporate management types determining what I will write about. While I am always interested in entertaining my audience here, I don't have to mix in some lowest common demoninator material like I do in my standup. I'm not saying I don't offer up LCD stuff here, but I do solely because it makes me laugh. Blogging is the most freeing creative exercise there is.

With these credentials, I believe I am the perfect person to mediate the slamdown that happened on HBO between Buzz Bissinger and Will Leitch. If you haven't seen the event moderated by Bob Costas, I suggest you watch it first. OK.....and your back. Let me begin by saying that I happen to agree with most of what Bissinger said. Most blogs don't provide insightful writing, instead just offering up a snarky takes on information that they generally got from MSM. Blogs are often more like what you get from a caller on a sports talkshow or the guy sitting at the corner bar. I would argue that baseball blogs are the top in their field because so many do it because they are sabermetrically-driven. As fanatical as this group can be, they also happen to be usually highly-intelligent, so there is little tabloid journalism involved.

Will Leitch is actually one of the best writers that has come out of the blogging world, which is why he now contributes work to the MSM, as well. Leitch also has his name on the byline, so he can't hide behind a moniker, which as I've addressed before I think offers crediblility to your work. One problem with Leitch representing the blogosphere is that his site is more of an entertainment site than a blog. Deadspin to me is kind of like a TMZ for sports, with a Daily Show satirical view of its proceedings. Bissinger (and Costas) went on the attack against blogs using the comments section of Deadspin. That was unfair, as smearing Deadspin or other blogs for what a few readers offer misses the mark. At Baseball Toaster there is a policing of what is offered up and since our readership is much smaller, we rarely have some idiot post a comment that needs to be pulled.

A lot of people in the blogosphere have been slamming Buzz, but I thought it was great that he went postal. Truthfully, his performance defending old media was very new media. It was like he was Bob Knight and Jay Mariotti all thrown into one personality. Considering that these are 2 of the people I loathe the most, it is weird that I'm complimenting the guy, but the MSM usually is defended by David Brooks-types, so it was fun to hear Bissinger offer up the same shots, but in an aggressively profane style. Bissinger has written 3 of the best non-fiction books of the past couple of decades. This is an important point, as Bissinger is an author. He is not writing a column for a newspaper. He isn't as limited by newpaper editors or corporate interests like MSM is. When he writes a book like Friday Night Lights, Bissinger doesn't have to continue to cover the Odessa, TX scene every Friday night. Outside of the considerable legwork he does in reseach and the large bonus of having a top-notch editor help him craft his art, Bissinger has more in common with bloggers than MSM-types, when it comes to the freedom he has.

There is a place for both MSM and the blogosphere, just like there is a place for both the New York Times and the New York Post or C-Span and E! Entertainment. I know many bloggers and their readers take some kind of perverse glee in the destruction of newspapers. This is short-sighted, as most of the info they get to write their read and reacts comes from newspapers. The transitional period we are in of mostly commentary and little hard-nosed reporting does not help the culture. If ths was Bissinger's ultimate point, he was right and I'm sure it was something that Leitch would have agreed with. I welcome Bissinger to read most of the stuff that gets written here at Baseball Toaster, as I believe it is some of the best blogging that is offered up on the web. My guess is outside of some of the stuff I offer up at the Juice Blog, it would give him a more hopeful attitude about the concept of blogs.