Take a look, on the right, at Thomas Jefferson's wistful countenance. Can't you just picture him thinking, "If I had known what sports blogs would be like, I never would have supported the First Amendment"?Buzz Bissinger can. The latest stop on his tour of media appearances to explain his hatred of sports blogs is an article in The Boston Phoenix.
In the article, Bissinger is quoted saying this:
"You have blogs that proudly parade around saying, 'We don't need no stinking credibility or stinking information - it doesn't matter what you say or do if you know how to write.' They cover themselves under the mantle of the First Amendment. But if John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had any idea what the First Amendment would have wrought, they would have canceled it."I'm going to have to go ahead and disagree with Bissinger there. I actually think that Adams and Jefferson understood that freedom of speech and of the press included the freedom to say and print things that Adams and Jefferson personally disagreed with.
Bissinger is a gifted writer, and I applaud him for opening his mind to blogs a little bit in the weeks since his disastrous Costas Now appearance. But you read quotes like that, and you can't help but think that he still has so much pent-up rage toward blogs that he's incapable of thinking clearly about them.
Via Fire Joe Morgan.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-19-2008 @ 8:44PM
carl said...
Blogs wouldnt do it but just dont let him watch any Olbermann
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6-19-2008 @ 8:58PM
Oh No Romo said...
Buzz doesn't love me........I feel shamed....
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6-20-2008 @ 8:52AM
Stephanie Stradley said...
I think it is worthwhile for folks to click to The Boston Phoenix article--it sums a lot of these issues up nicely.
As for the founding fathers' opinions about blogs, I couldn't disagree any more with Bissinger. We like to think of modern writing as somehow much more scandalous, but throughout American history, pamphlets and cartoons communicated all sorts of things that were considered rank gossip and heresy of the worst sort.
The concept of even "human rights" was an abomination that would have made a British version of Bissinger apoplectic. Rights are things that cannot be seen and in some ways, are difficult to explain and justify. In the beginnings of our country, it was made a crime to possess or publish pamphlets talking about human rights, defending what happened in revolutionary France.
Actually, I'm not sure of what these blogs are that Bissinger references suggesting they don't need information or credibility. You burn people enough about what you write, nobody will read you any more--whether you are in the MSM or blogs.
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