A Monday Morning Look at the Blogosphere
by T Kyle King on Aug 13, 2007 10:07 AM EDT
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PrintRecently, I felt moved to respond to Stewart Mandel's ill-considered animadversions upon my alma mater. I was not the first to do so, but the conversation has expanded in the days since and the additional voices to have been heard warrant our consideration. These are they:
- LD took a step back and examined the fundamental problems with Stewart Mandel's general approach and prominent position.
- Peter Bean started from LD's posting and moved to a broader consideration of relations between beat reporters and bloggers, arguing that we in the blogosphere should be past the point of feeling the need to prove ourselves and calling for an end to unwarranted antagonism towards professional journalists. (Peter, it should be noted, has been at the forefront of the effort to build bridges between bloggers and the press, as evidenced by the eclectic mix of writers he brought together to compile The Eyes of Texas.)
- When making his thoughtful point, Peter also made mention of a recent BallHype interview with the top bloggers at SB Nation, which deals with some of the same themes and addresses the place of blogging networks such as SB Nation and The FanHouse in the new media landscape.
Regarding the underlying issue that brought Stewart Mandel yet another round of deserved criticism, I would add only this datum to the fine points recently made by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Chip Towers:
In the last five football seasons (2002-2006), only four Division I-A programs have won at least nine games each and every year. Those four teams are the Boise State Broncos, the Southern California Trojans, the Texas Longhorns . . . and the Georgia Bulldogs.
If Stewart Mandel wants to argue that the Red and Black are not at the same lofty level as Boise State, which went undefeated last year, or as Texas or U.S.C., which have won national titles in that span, that may be a legitimate point. To argue that one of the winningest programs both in the history of the sport and in the last half-decade is a second-tier team, though, is absolutely asinine.
Go 'Dawgs!
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UGA not perceived as a national power
First my bona fides, I actually have a degree from UGA (unlike 50% or more of the Georgia football fans I have met over the years). My love for the institution and sports programs however does not make me blind.
Despite amazing success in the Richt years, the years between 1985 and 2001 were pretty weak years. How many conference titles? How many years has UGA been in the hunt for a national title. Heck, UGA cannot beat UF and I am not sure you can be a national power when you rarely beat another team.
Even in the conference title years, UGA got the short straw by playing a bad FSU team in a bowl game. Playing a better team would have raised the prominence. Losing to WVU in the Sugar Bowl (in Atlanta at that!) also did nothing to make UGA a national team.
I have lived in Big 10 country (IL and WI) and now in Big 12 country (CO) and Georgia was never a thought to football fans in these regions. Bama, yes and FSU yes, but not UGA (or even Florida really until this year--especially when my Nebraska friends think about their match up).
UGA has won 1, count it 1, national championship and that came against a weak ND team that UGA barely defeated (how many of you mock ND now but take great pride in defeating ND for the 1980 title?) It came close against Penn State (I was there) and against Pitt (I was there also). Those two wins (against PSU would have given UGA a 2nd national title) could have set a tone especially then beating Texas (in an awful game in the Cotton Bowl--again I was there), but then UGA went flat for more than a decade.
Some teams keep their national prominence even when the luster is off such as Alabama and Penn State and FSU (more recent), but all 3 have legendary coaches. Dooley, as much as I admired him, is not in the same league with Joe Pa, Bowden and Bryant at least on a national stage.
FYI
by Hobnail Boot on Aug 13, 2007 10:19 PM EDT up reply actions
SkiDawg, thanks for the thoughtful reply
The Fighting Irish arrived in New Orleans with a 9-1-1 record and a No. 7 A.P. poll ranking. The Golden Domers were ranked No. 1 as late as early November, were ranked No. 2 (behind the Bulldogs) as late as early December, and went into the final game of the regular season undefeated.
Even with the loss to the Red and Black, Notre Dame was ranked in the top 10 in both major polls at the end of the season. Over the course of the 1980 campaign, the Irish defeated Miami (which went 9-3, won the Peach Bowl, and finished as the A.P. No. 18 team), Purdue (which went 9-3, won the Liberty Bowl, and finished as the A.P. No. 17 team), Alabama (which went 10-2, won the Cotton Bowl, and finished as the A.P. No. 6 team), and Michigan (which went 10-2, won the Rose Bowl, and finished as the A.P. No. 4 team).
I can't stand Notre Dame, but that was a good team.
by T Kyle King on Aug 13, 2007 10:56 PM EDT up reply actions
ND 1980
I stand corrected. (UGA did get every break in the book in that game. No team should win a game with a QB going 1-13--or whatever Buck's stats were).
TX/OU
Also, I would say that obviously people in other regions tend to overlook teams and your comment about your friends' thoughts about Florida reinforces that.
One more thing
PS: I find it funny when bloggers and people on the street think they can do a better job at writing articles or coaching than the people who actually do it. If those people are really that good, then quit your job and become a columnist or a coach. My guess is that you will be making more money (eventually).
Reading bloggers who drone on and on also reminds me of my days hanging around the Red and Black and occasionally writing an article and having it edited to fit the space and to make it flow better. It is not as easy as it looks.
Good point about the distinction . . .
LD is right, as well, that there is a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem when it comes to national sports commentators declaring which are the nationally prominent programs. Do they get more media coverage because they're nationally prominent or are they nationally prominent because they get more media coverage?
I freely admit that I could not do a better job of coaching than the people who actually do it. I try to point out results and extrapolate from them which coaches appear to be doing their jobs well or poorly, but I do not presume to be anything like as capable as they are of coaching.
Whether my weblog postings are better or worse than Stewart Mandel's columns is a question I leave to the readers to decide. I would, however, follow up on LD's point by noting that the fact that Mandel is a professional and I am an amateur may work to his detriment and my benefit.
Mandel's value to his employer is measured in the number of page views he generates, which directly affects his employer's advertising revenues. My ability to write for a weblog is in no meaningful way affected by such considerations. While I try to produce interesting content that is informative and enjoyable to read, I operate under only the most rudimentary of constraints and I am free to write how and what I please.
That may not make me a better writer than Stewart Mandel and perhaps my work would be improved by the presence of an editor who could play Maxwell Perkins to my Thomas Wolfe. (For the record, I felt that the editors of my Red & Black columns only rarely and minimally improved my work . . . and O Lost was better than Look Homeward Angel.)
I believe my work is more genuine than Mandel's, though, because I am free to write what I think about what I choose, without the need either to achieve greater breadth at the cost of lesser depth or to offer outrageous observations solely for their shock value.
I freely admit that beat reporters know their subject in greater depth and detail than I do. I am dependent upon their news-gathering and -disseminating skills, for which I am beholden to them and for which they deserve and receive my respect.
Pundits like Stewart Mandel, though, don't know anything more than I do and they don't have access to anything of substance to which I do not also have access. While he's making inexplicable and instinctual lists compiled on the basis of the presumed thoughts of 100 fictitious Montanans, I'm giving actual data and drawing conclusions based upon it.
I may still be wrong, of course, but at least you know the facts and reasons on which I am basing my conclusions. Professional pundits like Stewart Mandel not only do not have a monopoly on the truth, they don't even necessarily have greater access to the facts and fine details from which that truth is derived.
That is not to say that professional columnists do not have a craft or that there are not professional columnists who are better than most bloggers. However, as someone who wrote a newspaper column for two years and has operated a weblog for two more, I can tell you that the mere fact that I have a day job unrelated to sports doesn't make me a worse writer or a less capable thinker than the Stewart Mandels of the world.
At the end of the day, the proof is in the pudding. The good writers and clear thinkers, both among the professional ranks and among the amateurs, get credibility and respect the old-fashioned way . . . by earning it. Whether they also earn a paycheck in the process has nothing whatever to do with it.
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