HBO's "Sports in the Media"

Tonight, HBO aired a live edition of "Costas Now" featuring round table discussions on how the various media outlets contribute and have changed the way we listen, read and watch sports, and how the athletes themselves feel about the media.

Since this is a blog, I'll focus on solely the "Internet" aspect of it.

There's a belief out there among established sportswriters that because bloggers don't work for major news outlets, and don't possess the press credentials that allow them access to the athletes they're writing about, that they shouldn't be taken seriously, and possibly shouldn't be allowed to write at all.

To me, that attitude is downright ignorant of the changing tide in sports journalism.

Newspapers, as we know them, are dying. To me, as someone who grew up with the hopes of one day writing for one, this is sad. Most major newspapers haven't adapted to the changing times and as circulations dwindle, they're hemorrhaging money and layoff hundreds of employees because their readers simply want their information in a faster and more convenient way.

This is where blogs can be very useful.

A prime example of how blogs have become so vital to sports fans is this:

Right now, the Seattle Mariners are having difficulties scoring runs. For the last few days, it's been rumored that their top hitting prospects in AAA-Tacoma, Jeff Clement and Wladimir Balentien, are on their way up. In fact, before tonight's game, Mariners manager John McLaren said they'd be called up "sooner than later", which was reported on sports radio, the FSN pre-game show and in the blogs in the Seattle Times.

Tonight, during the Mariners-Indians game, the great Mariners blog USS Mariner reported that both Clement and Balentien weren't in the Tacoma Rainiers lineup, which is a prime indicator that they're on their way up to the Mariners.

Without the Internet, and without blogs run by fans and writers who are passionate about the subject, fans simply wouldn't be as informed as they are with it.

Are there websites that lean more negative? Of course they are, but as there is with most everything else, the choice to read those sites is entirely yours.

If you find those sites objectionable, and characterize them in your magazine columns as the works jobless wannabes who sit in their mom's basement spouting off whatever hair-brained garbage enters their minds to the masses, does nothing but fuel the negativity you are complaining about in the first place.

This blog will make the occasional snarky comment, but the purpose of it has always been to share my thoughts and opinions, in a respectful manner, on what goes on in and around the National Football League.

And that's not going to change.