Press bashing is such an easy, obvious exercise that it normally bears little attention around here. Sure, we could move and rename the blog "Pat Harty Sucks," and we'd probably have material for four or five posts a day. Not a terrible idea, of course, but there's no emotional satisfaction or overall merit to it. Plus the chat logs from username HartyParty would be unbelievably creepy.
And yet, there are some things that raise our ire so much that we're practically obligated to mention them here. Biting a blog's style is one of them. You see, Brian at MGoBlog definitely broke the Lloyd Carr retirement story yesterday. It wasn't ESPN or a local rag. It was Brian. He, of course, is receiving no credit whatsoever, even though he's got an impeccable track record.
Now, blogs get no respect from the media. We get that. The vast majority of blogs (ours, for example) are written by asses, be they smart or dumb (BHGP leans toward dumbass, in case you couldn't tell). Blogfrica is still a dark continent, after all. But there's something awfully unethical about a strict no-mention clause as far as naming specific blogs as origins of information, as the Ann Arbor News did. If you don't want to send readers to PhilFulmerIsPoopy.blogspot.com, fine, don't. And don't take information from that site either.
Oh, and Rivals? Fuck Rivals.
We're not asking for much. We know newspapers' business models are shit and readership is sagging worse than Weis's front butt. Newspapers are doomed and antiquated, but the proper response is not to pretend that websites and blogs are not real sources of information. 95% of them are not real sources of information. This website is not a real source of information. But that other 5% should be considered indispensable allies, not adversaries.
[HT, daps and hugs, mean mugs and shoulder shrugs to fellow class clown Run Up The Score, who has his own devastating criticism here.]