For many sports bloggers, it’s been a struggle to gain acceptance, or at least the acknowledgement of the mainstream media. Some have gotten there, but many of us are still struggling. Through ignorance sports blogs are either associated with yahoos on message boards, or personal diaries that mention sports. That’s why it is somewhat surprising to see the prevalence of blogs int he mainstream media now.
We know that ESPN.com has recently started their most prominent writers blogging, but it appears to be happening on a local level as well. Here in the Detroit market, 3 of the 5 Tiger beat writers are now maintaining blogs. Danny Knobler of Booth Newspapers and Jason Beck of MLB.com are now keeping blogs, and they join Tom Gage of the Detroit News who began blogging last year.
So it seems that blogs are generally accepted now, but it remains to be seen if bloggers will be accepted. Also, I don’t know how much of the move towards blogging is the idea of the mainstream media writers, or of their employers. In each of the cases I’ve mentioned, the writers are blogging under the umbrella of their parent organizations. Also, only time will tell if any of these MSM blogs will link out to independent blogs. In the case of Gage’s blog, there has never been a single link of any sort. Knobler’s blog has yet to link, but so far he’s been posting updates from spring training. On Jason Beck’s blog, he has the other MSM blogs in his sidebar, but none of the independents.
What are your thoughts on this trend? Are you seeing it in other markets? Do you think your site will benefit or be hurt by the presence of MSM blogs?
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I was happy to see that Matthew Leach, the Cards beat writer for MLB.com, has a list (at the bottom) of other Cards blog. So at someone is linking out.
With Gammons and the ESPN folks, it’s a pretty strict policy of them not being able to link out, so you can’t really blame them.
I think that most established media are going to use weblogs as a way to update nuggets of late-breaking news (i.e. a change in the starting lineup, etc.) and as a way to develop a dialogue between writers and readers.
I don’t hold it against folks like Gage for not linking out to indies. I’d guess that some of the parent media companies have policies that prevent it. And besides, I don’t think that anyone has an obligation to link out to anyone else–I’ve never bought that line of thinking, and I never will.
Personally, I only link out to content that I actually read on a regular basis (regardless of whether they link back to me), even in my sidebar, and I turn down reciprocal link requests all the time based on that rule. I can only imagine what a nightmare it would be to deal with link requests for a MSM blogger.
The mainstream media incorporating blogs into their content remind me of big movie studios creating boutique production houses for their own “independent” films. Studios like Sony and Universal can make smaller films like Capote and Brokeback Mountain, but they’re not truly movies made outside the studio system. Sites like ESPN can use their blogs to produce content on a more immediate basis than TV shows and magazines, but they’ll never produce the same criticism and alternative to mainstream media that non-MSM bloggers do.
In both cases, the content might be similar (or even “better” and more vital from the corporate entities), but I don’t think co-opting the medium fills the void that such original trends/movements like independent films and blogs were created to supply.