So I picked up a Daily today...

“My game columns are written from the perspective of someone experiencing the same emotions you are,” Cook said. “Newspapers don’t do that. They experience games as sportswriters, as objectivity mavens, that sort of thing. They don’t say ‘Fuck.’ No one at a newspaper has ever screamed ‘Fuck’ at a Michigan game, and getting an opinion from someone who has done that is sort of empowering in a way.” Me on multiple occasions at Michigan games: "Fuck fuckitty fuck fuck fuck" -someone at a newspaper Of course... The sentiment is right, just not the statement itself. I wouldn't, y'know, yell that at an EPA presser when they announced new PM standards. I think the point that's missed when talking about blogs is that it's not just the format that makes MGoBlog et al. so great, but the quality of the content. Newspaper coverage has degraded over a LONG time; to find in-depth analysis like UFR in a newspaper you'd have to go back to the 18th century, when papers published entire speeches by elected officials and broke them down (the French-language paper Le Monde still does this to a degree). Some papers have caught on. The New York Times' coverage of the election this year on its website was on par with the popular blogs like Electoral-vote.com (though they got all their ideas from the blogs in '04). What took the "Paper of Record" so long was that political blogging, at first, sucked balls. Most political blogs were entirely partisan, mocking the ideals of journalism, rather than living up to them. But then a new generation of bloggers came around, establishing standards, staking their reputation on the quality of their content, and thus wooing a greater audience. Even if the blogger himself was a partisan -- Election Projection is a good example -- by embracing journalistic integrity, he could create a medium truly capable of out-competing the established media. Sports coverage will go that way eventually as well, whether they buy up the best blogs, or copycat them, because as we've seen here, there's a market for it. Keep in mind, though, that these are not exactly the same industry. Brian provides analysis, something modern sports journalism have become REALLY crappy at, especially in comparison to resources like MGoBlog. What journalists are best at is providing news. As the article suggests, we do a lot of sitting around at things our readers never would have the time or will to sit through. We develop source relationships on our carefully guarded reputations. This doesn't mean we'll always get the scoop (for example, the McGuffie thing broke on MgoBlog before anywhere else). I applaud this blog, not just Brian's work but the work of his readers and sources, whose source work is invaluable to the cause. But I also applaud Brian not just for his incredible analysis, but for his journalistic triage performed at a level that is simply astounding for a blog. We have editors and ombudsmen watching over our shoulders; Brian's work is pure journalism, with him staking his own credibility on every post. So readers and posters of MgoBlog have a right to be proud to be part of this. Just remember, it's not the medium itself that makes this blog great and the sports pages of our local papers barely worthy of wrapping paper. Both mediums have their plusses and pitfalls. What makes this blog stand out is that it not only uses all of its content advantages over newspapers, but also bests them through the extraordinary quality of the content.