Inaccurate MSM-er Accuses Bloggers of Being Inaccurate

Today, over at USA Hockey Magazine, Ricki Dugdale posted an article about blogging and it’s effect on the hockey world. Of course, as with any article on blogging from the MSM, it came with the answers to typical questions such as, “what is a blog?” It was a noble effort, albeit still uninformed like seemingly everything the MSM has ever written about blogs.

Basically my point is this — if you want to write an article that includes points about what blogs are and which ones are the best, you have to at least have some idea as to what you are talking about. For example, if I’m going to write about what a newspaper is and then type up a Top 10 list, I should have some idea as to what they’re all about, correct? OK, glad we have that down.

Like I said, Mr. Dugdale’s effort was commendable. He gets a +1 for resisting the urge to paint a picture of all bloggers as 40-year old virgins who haven’t seen the sun or our feet in at least a decade. Well, sort of.

Only recently have bloggers begun to shed the stereotypical image of a sports junkie posting his computer-generated rants from the safety of his parent’s basement.

Aside from the fact that the ladies in the room are probably offended (there are female bloggers you know), I would say that comment is sort of a step in the right direction. We’ve advanced beyond our parents’ basement. I didn’t get that memo. Were we supposed to move into the living room?

However, the article does come with a few of the standard diatribes (Never leave home without them!).

Practicing a free form of journalism where anything goes, amateur bloggers are not required to uphold media ethics because they are not accountable to a higher authority, such as an editor or publisher.

Dammit. For the last time… What we’re doing isn’t journalism and we don’t try and pretend that we are. To the untrained eye, we are accountable to no one but believe me, if I fuck up, the commenters will let me know. The pageview statistics will reflect it. People are smart. If what I’m writing is dumb and inaccurate, people will stop coming. That’s why some blogs float and some don’t. The cream always rises to the top (lone exception coming).

But the most damning part of the article, and frankly the part that made me write this rant in the first place is the following passage. It was first pointed out earlier today by Mr. Wyshynski.

Some bloggers tend to post anything and everything, regardless of truth or accuracy, which can create problems because blogs that have been established as reliable must fight harder to be recognized among the established media.

At first glance, that statement raises no red flags in my mind. It’s the truth. Some blogs post all kinds of useless shit and those that want to be taken all super serious may have it harder because of that. But read on, and you are confronted with the following brain cramp inducing contradiction when Mr. Dugdale posts his Top 10 list of hockey blogs.

3) Hockey Buzz
hockeybuzz.com
Eklund, The Anonymous Hockey Blogger, is the number one NHL blogger on the Internet, and hockeybuzz.com is his collaborative effort with bloggers everywhere. This is the site to find news and information on all the teams and to keep up to date with hockey rumors.

Are you fucking kidding me?

No disrespect to the rest of Hockey Buzz, but that paragraph is a joke. Somewhere Eric McErlain, Greg Wyshynski and James Mirtle may have all had simultaneous strokes. Please, go check on them!

All I’m saying is that if you’re going to explain to everyone what blogs are is that you better know a little something about them. Doyle Brunson didn’t write the Super System off the top of his head and I hope people will stop writing about blogs when they can’t even figure out which ones are fact and which are fiction.
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