Last summer, in the video below, Keith Olbermann referred to me as a “blogger,” and I was taken a bit aback.
It’s probably just that Keith has a different definition of that word than I do. I’m not certain anyone actually knows what that word means these days.
There is no universal for what is and what is not a “blog” anymore. The word blog is often not used as a condescending pejorative these days. (It certainly was a dirty word in the early 2000s)
However, look at Deadspin, The Big Lead, TMZ, The Daily Kos, The Huffington Post etc. Those websites are often called blogs and they are the industry leaders in media today. Deadspin and TMZ have been first in breaking numerous stories that went national and dominated news cycles for days.
Just the other day a publicist asked me something by calling The Sports Bank “a blog” and I didn’t care enough to correct him (the person who said blog was certainly not someone of the stature and accomplishment of Olbermann), but I really should have corrected him anyway.
Really the only true “blog” or “blogger” is someone who:
-doesn’t ever go out to events to write about them, but instead writes from the couch
-doesn’t ever break any news (ironic, because Keith was calling attention to news that I broke first regarding Greg Gumbel and the Washington team name, and The Sports Bank “article” was picked up and cited in The Washington Post)
-doesn’t ever meet or interview the people being written about
-doesn’t attach their real name to their writing, and never posts pictures of themselves so people know who they are and what they look like.
-doesn’t get paid for their writing, or doesn’t get paid enough to make a living off of it
If the five categories listed above do indeed describe you then I guess you are in fact a blog.
However, none of the five apply to The Sports Bank.
This “website” is my day job, I do make a very good living off it, I attend between 3-5 games or press conferences or media conference calls or media availabilities per week every week. I’ve had exclusives with Hall of Famers in all the major sports, I’ve been credentialed for Rose Bowl, NBA playoffs, Final Four etc.
I’ve broken lots of stories first that went national. Here are four examples: the Jay Cutler “don’t care” story, the Chicago Blackhawks and not Comcast SportsNet being the institution responsible for firing Susannah Collins, Carrie Underwood replacing Faith Hill as NBC’s Sunday Night Football intro singer, the Gumbel story I just mentioned.
Yet I still face questions from people wondering “how do you make money with that thing?” and “blah, blah, blah your blog.”
I’ve realized that people just have differing definitions of the word blog or are just too caught up in doing their own thing to pay close attention to what you’re doing. That’s fine. I’m more caught up in doing my own thing than I am in paying attention to your thing. Just don’t tell me what I am and what I’m not.
Yes, I’m aware of the irony of writing a self-reflective “blog post” to say that The Sports Bank is not a blog so don’t bother pointing that out. (h/t Sideshow Bob on the “abolish television”/air force episode of The Simpsons)
Then again aren’t newspaper op-eds and essays essentially the same thing as “blogs?” Shakespeare was the world’s first essayist so maybe he was in fact the first blogger too.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with Fox Sports Digital, eBay, Google News and CBS Interactive Inc. You can read Banks’ feature stories in the Chicago Tribune RedEye newspaper and listen to him on KOZN 1620 The Zone.
Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)