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Friday Night Fights: Buzz Bissinger vs. The Internet

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BUZZKILL Bissinger's vandalized Wiki, Bissinger (inset) (Photo: Wikipedia)
Last night on Bob Costas' eponymous HBO talk show Costas Now, Deadspin's Will Leitch sat down with Pulitzer prize-winning reporter and Friday Night Lights scribe Buzz Bissinger and had a polite, informative, and altogether illuminating discussion on how the Internet is changing the landscape of sports journalism. So willing was Bissinger—a writer we actually like, mind you—to engage Leitch in civilized discourse that he kicked off the proceedings by telling him, "I think you're full of shit." Things quickly spiraled downhill from there, to the point where even poor Costas, not exactly the biggest fan of new media out there, had to tell him to shut up already.

The remarkable video, after the jump, is a sight to behold: it's a rare thing to see someone who was made a career of making thoughtful, cogent arguments on paper come off as such a stark, raving lunatic in person. The ultimate irony, of course, is that Bissinger shows himself to be the exact person he spent the previous five minutes wailing against: a profane, inarticulate, windbag.

As his freshly-edited Wikipedia entry proves (pictured above), denizens of the Internet are already having their revenge. Leitch's take on the ambush is here.

Comments

Leitch is disingenuous. Imagine giving a pyromaniac a box of matches and saying "now whatever you do, don't use these" then saying "It's not MY fault he used the matches."

That's kind of what he and his compadres are doing by allowing pretty much any life form with opposable thumbs to post comments on Deadspin and and others blogs that pander to the salacious and gossipy (like Radar at times?). These are the same people who call in to Talk Radio to rant and rave about a manager leaving in a pitcher one batter too long. We share your pain, guys, but enough already. The fact that anyone can drop comments like those on Bissinger's Wikipedia page kind of proves my point I think.

Bissinger may be a bit passionate in his opinion of psuedo-journalist bloggers anxious for a moment in the sun, rushing to post "news" at the cost of accuracy and integrity. I am of his generation,as well as a fellow professional journalist and understand the frustration of having to compete, at least in some ways, with these attention-grabbers. But I agree with Costas that there are plenty of thoughtful and well-produced blogs out there

The sanest voice of the panelists seemed to be Braylon Edwards.

Posted by: ronk232 on May 1, 2008 1:44 PM

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