Throwing Down the Gauntlet

I can understand why mainstream media types fear (and loathe) bloggers. We do what they do without restraint. We are not subject to editing, oversight, deadlines or the threat of a paycheck being pulled. But Bob Costas has gone too far:

''But it's one thing if somebody just sets up a blog from their mother's basement in Albuquerque and they are who they are, and they're a pathetic get-a-life loser, but now that pathetic get-a-life loser can piggyback onto someone who actually has some level of professional accountability and they can be comment No. 17 on Dan Le Batard's column or Bernie Miklasz' column in St. Louis. That, in most cases, grants a forum to somebody who has no particular insight or responsibility. Most of it is a combination of ignorance or invective.''

This Miami Herald article would have escaped my notice except, of course, for a blogger. There is a very smart and engaging blog that I read regularly (and sometimes comment on) called Only Baseball Matters. The post linked to another fine blog called Baseball Think Factory which then links to the source. I have been on-line since 1993. Remember USENET? I do. There are--no doubt--lots of idiots and losers on the 'net. So much of the "comments" section of any forum is blather, nothing more than the barstool rantings of angry drunks. In that narrow sense, Mr. Costas has a point. But he cannot--he must not--paint us all with the same brush. Too many wonderful voices have emerged from the chaos of cyberspace (how about Dave Zirin or Alexander Cockburn?). Funny thing: Costas is raging about "professional accountability" yet he delivers a carpet-bombing screed against an entire class of people without a shred of evidence, careful thought, or research. I wonder if those fat paychecks from the huge multi-media conglomerates he works for have distorted his perspective. Listen up Bob: time to get off the leather lounger the networks gave you for the Olympics and start noticing that far, far too many of your colleagues are narrow-minded, short-sighted egomaniacs with a well-paying national forum for their prejudiced, self-important drivel. Start paying attention to "alternative" media, pal, because the fascist outfits you shill for are swallowing up every other avenue of individual, creative expression left in this soul-less capitalist mess we call a country. In twenty years, if you and your ilk have their way, the only free thought left in the world will be a drug-addled half-senile ex-blogger with a mimeograph machine salvaged from the dump, printing broadsheets on his dwindling collection of grocery bags.

¡VIVA LA REVOLUCIÓN!