Navigating the Dangerous Sportsblog Waters

When I started this little project and erected the pulpit, I said that one of the things I would comment upon would be sports journalism, and in this faux golden age of technology, there are a lot of false prophets out chasing profits with little or no regard to journalistic integrity and ethics.

Most of these heathens are bloggers, who have no training, but stringent agendas. Some of them are the careless long-timers on the local evening news and have long forgotten their oaths.

Legitimate journalistic blogging is a tough gig. Everyone makes mistakes, and most of us don’t have editors – legitimate editors – to catch the err of our ways. Most bloggers have agendas, most have no journalism backgrounds, most have no clue about journalistic ethics or integrity, a vast majority have never taken the silent vow to uphold those ethics, and most of them don’t really care.

A lot of them will say this or that about their First Amendment rights while not knowing a thing about the First Amendment or what it really says. As long as they air their views and bring you like sheep to the slaughter (not my flock), they mostly want notoriety more than anything.

I’ve struggled with the dilemma of naming or leaving anonymous the perpetrator of what may seem to most a harmless error. We have mainstream meatheads making marvelous mistakes, and it’s almost impossible to call them out on all of them. To point the finger at some guy who does this as a hobby, even if it’s an 8-year hobby, might seem elitist.

On the other hand, this is a serious business. When I was a professional journalist, our reputation based on integrity was everything. Readers come to the blogs (and they come in droves during a time when newspaper after newspaper loses readership) to read a point of view alternative to the mainstream media, or to read the words of the rising star writer who never got his break on the professional circuit. You shouldn’t have to come to the blogs and wonder if the information you’re getting is accurate. And for that reason, I must be the keeper of the Grail. I must act on your behalf.

Musn't I?

I must. But I have decided not to throw the writer under the bus. Not yet, anyway. Said writer was recapping the top 10 Boston sports stories of the year. He was lauding Bill Belichick for the phenomenal coaching job he's done this year. He said the Patriots were 5-5 and are currently on a five-game winning streak.

Which is all great, except that it's not true. The Patriots were 4-4 when they stopped alternating wins and losses. Then they won two in a row to go to 6-4, lost one to 6-5, and won four straight to get to 10-5 -- not five straight ... not yet.

So that's the big freakin' deal, right? Just a tiny little mistake, right? Why do I care?

I'll tell you why I care, because it's wrong. And not only is it wrong, it's not that tough to verify. I'm assuming, the writer being a blogger, that he has access to the Internet. You can start with Patriots.com. Then there's NFL.com, ESPN.go.com, CNNSI.com, CBSSportsLine.com and probably a dozen more (including PatsPulpit).

The information is easily accessible in a matter of seconds. It's not like when New England played Pittsburgh in Week 3, and Belichick said you could throw the history out the window, and he said something about 1947, and I spent a couple hours trying to verify beyond the shadow of a doubt if he was making it up or if he really knew. This is stuff that just happened, and you can't be so nonchalant about it.

You can't survive for real in this business working off memory. It's fallible. You have to check your facts. I do, constantly. Which is why I know you come here. Because I give it to you straight, and I give it to you accurately. You want the real deal, and this is it.

OK, while I'm throwing bombs, I might as well blow up Scott Zolak because of his statements on the 5th Quarter on Monday night following the Pats-Jets game. Zolak said he'd rather the Patriots play Jacksonville in the first round because David Garrard is their quarterback.

By that time, Byron Leftwich had already been cleared to practice and it was fairly common knowledge that he expects to start in the first round of the playoffs, if not this weekend. Bob Neumeier was all over it, but Zolak insisted. Maybe he knows something we don't, but I think he got caught with his pants down.

Argh. Just for the heck of it: John Dennis, Dale Arnold and Butch Stearns -- two guys with two first names and one guy with none -- they stink.