RADIOBLOGWARS: Mike Missanelli Wrote Something about Blogs, and Boy It's Something

Mike Missanelli, writing for his weekly PhillyMag.com column, which some might call… a blog:

[Reuben Frank’s piece] was immediately met with the typical blog cynicism, especially from Philly’s Crossing Broad and its fearless leader, Kyle Scott, who mocked Frank for implying that the media protects the fans by being their conduit for information. (Crossing Broad bills itself as Philadelphia’s most irreverent sports blog, which might be akin to billing Johnny Third Grader as the loudest mouth in class.)

Today, two species of Internet media are slowly taking over the modern journalistic world: websites and blogs. The websites normally flow from legitimate journalistic endeavors, such as ESPN.com (which employs more reporters today than the old days when newspapers were king), or locally, CSNPhilly.com, which employs Eagles’ beat writers (as does this site’s Birds 24/7 channel). Blogs are normally nefarious observers, opining from outside the circle of knowledge. What flows from this is a situation where bloggers, folks who have never tasted the field of journalistic battle by neither covering a beat, nor interviewing pertinent parties directly, have nothing left but to try to mock or discredit the actual reporters in the field.

…

Even Crossing Broad is writing to its readers. Some of its information is original. Most of it is warmed over crap-spins of already existing stories, troublemaking gossip mongering, or published comments from low IQs that have no shot at a Mensa level. But that content is still being produced for the reader. So how can Crossing Broad, or any other blog, endorse information not coming to the Philadelphia Eagle fan because the principals don’t feel the need to talk?

You might not like the press. But have a little respect, you bunch of ingrates.

This is bordering on self-parody.

I’ll, um, have some more thoughts tomorrow. I want to savor this for a few, swirl it around in a snifter and breathe in its very essence. Only then will I truly be able to appreciate all of the subtle notes. Is that… a hint of bullshit I detect?