He Also Thinks This E-mail Thing Is Just a Passing Fad

Morning Bytes Rages Against the Machine

DO YOU SUPPOSE Frank Fitzpatrick knows Jonathan Klein? Klein, who heads up CNN, once famously referred to bloggers as nothing more than pajamas-wearing hacks, then was hoist on his own petard when the blogosphere pointed out several examples of sloppy reporting and insufficient fact-checking by the mainstream media. Well, in last Friday's Inquirer the always-insightful Fitzpatrick led a typically illuminating Morning Bytes column with this gem:

Assuming George Mitchell doesn't find any grounds to shut it down prematurely, the 2006 baseball season is just days away.

That means that for the next six months baseball fans have a license to behave like bloggers -- sitting around their dens in their underwear, staring blankly at a screen, pontificating on subjects they know nothing about.

I'll pause so that you can let the heaving laughter subside and wipe the tears from your eyes.

I'm trying to decide whether I'm more offended as a baseball fan or as a blogger. I take both roles seriously, as do a number of really fine writers whom I've had the good fortune to meet over the last couple of years through this little venture. Fitzpatrick's jibe wasn't funny when it was first being articulated two years ago; now, with blogs having grown in popularity and impact, and representing a part of journalism's future, this attempt at -- at what, exactly? Social criticism? Whatever you call it, it's misplaced, outdated, and just plain wrong. And has Fitzpatrick looked at his own paper's home page lately? After months of pretending they didn't exist, it's now lousy with blogs. And has he noticed the falling circulation of the newspaper industry? If Fitzpatrick were a dinosaur, he'd be bitching about how cold it was getting instead of learning how to build a shelter.

One final point needs to be made here: I've never met Frank Fitzpatrick, but if he dresses like most of the sportswriters I've known, pajamas would be an improvement.

Comments

[gr]

if only everyone's job consisted of jotting down uninteresting things that occurred to them while buying huggies at safeway. think how much the world would get done. thanks for your contribution to society, frank. what an a-hole.

[Nat]

You mean you're actually still reading that rag?

I didn't even bother to check their pre-season baseball coverage this year since I'm sure none of their writers had anything to say that hadn't been said before and better here and elsewhere on the baseblogs.

And ya gotta love it when any newspaper columnist accuses anyone else of "pontificating." Pot, meet kettle.

Anyway, I think these newspaper people, columnists especially, know that blogs are eating their lunch -- and breakfast and dinner -- and there's not a damn thing they can do about it.

[chris]

His description isn't actually about Bill Conlin?????

[Tom Durso]

Zolecki and Salisbury are good -- and I think they get what we're doing. But Frank ... yeesh.

[Tom G]

I would agree, Zolecki and Salisbury are good, my eyes gravitate to their bylines more frequently that others. And while I often vehemently disagree with Conlin, I never leave his columns without learning at the very least something about baseball's past....And while Fitzpatrick is bad-talking bloggers, Philly.com and its print version was running stories about Chris Conte...

[Brian]

I pointed out as much in a nasty e-mail. This guy once gave me some leads for a grad school paper on the Phils' racist past, but he has turned into the worst excuse for a just-hanging-on columnist (the cockfighting jokes were more offensive and worse) this side of Don McKee. Good riddance print media.

[pawnking]

You know, if my entire livelihood was being threatened by people who do what I do, but for free, well, I'd probably look down my nose at them, too.

[Mr.Sucks]

He sucks. Plain and simple.

[bill]

Man, you got slammed by Dan McQuade in his blog. I agree with you...Frank Fitzpatrick was once a very good writer now he just writes crap and sports history pieces. Blah.

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