Crazy Old Man Shakes Fist at Automobile, Decries Decline of Horse-Drawn Carriage

When you get twenty minutes or so, check out this video of Friday Night Lights author Buzz Bissinger freaking out on Deadspin‘s Will Leitch. Bissinger, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, is all hot and bothered that bloggers would have the temerity to make a joke at the expense of an athlete and use vulgar language (all the while making fun of Deadspin’s “Big Daddy Drew” and dropping more F and S bombs than I cared to count).

Delicious, delicious irony aside, Bissinger comes off as unhinged; there were a couple of moments in which it appeared he was going to strike Leitch for having the temerity to enjoy an acquaintance with the workings of the InnerTubes. It’s kind of sad that old media relics don’t understand the synergy that can exist between blogs, long-form reporting, and daily sports journalism. It’s not like the three have to battle to death in the Thunderdome or anything.

A similar struggle has been playing out in the world of political reporting for a couple of years now; the result was an absorption of bloggers into the mainstream media. The Washington Post now has a cadre of great bloggers, as do Time and the Atlantic. This doesn’t stop those organizations from producing fantastic, longer essays on myriad topics. Sports blogs are slowly gaining credibility in the mainstream media (ESPN, for example, has several). I get that Deadspin‘s humor isn’t for everyone, but there’s really no need to act like this is the sportspocalypse.