Saturday, June 23, 2007

Wash Post's Mike Wise Hates Bloggers

I hate mainstream sports media columns like this, which (a) rip bloggers and (b) show a glaring lack of understanding about blogs, sports media and fans.

At best, Mike Wise comes across like a desperate columnist looking for traction in the blogosphere by inciting it. At worst, he comes across like a fool. He accomplishes both.

And, either way, his loss. I'll have more reaction to this when I have a chance to sit down and really write out an analysis of where he goes so very very wrong. -- D.S.

P.S.: Great to see and meet everyone who went out to the Deadspin East Coast Pants Party last night at the Mets-A's game. Fun time all around.

2 comments:

Hack33308 said...

Seems he has a general issue with bloggers at the moment...found it funny reading this about him after just reading another post on a Duke blog about him...excerpt below(http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com):


Or take the case of Washington Post sportswriter Mike Wise. Wise recently wrote, “With all due respect to those ‘INNOCENT’ bracelets worn around Durham this year, this isn’t ‘To Kill a Mockingbird II.’”

I e-mailed Wise, suggesting that the case paralleled To Kill a Mockingbird. (Indeed, Jason Whitlock detected this point early on, and Judge Gerald Tjoflat made the comparison in his alumni speech.) I noted to Wise that, as in To Kill a Mockingbird, this case involved an unscrupulous prosecutor playing to the racial passions of the mob, and courageous defense attorneys standing up for principle.

Wise’s response? “One [accused player], in fact, is on probation right now for clocking a kid in Georgetown that he called ‘a fag.’ I don't know about you, but I never thought of the man Gregory Peck represented in the movie to be that kind of individual.”

Leave aside the fact that Collin Finnerty isn’t on probation “right now,” or that even prosecutors conceded that he didn’t “clock” anyone, or that the personal character of Tom Robinson, the man falsely accused of rape, wasn’t a major theme of Harper Lee’s novel. As I e-mailed Wise, “Gregory Peck played not the person falsely accused of rape but the lawyer willing to stand up for what was right, regardless of the color of his client or the short-term political unpopularity of his cause. And yes, I could easily see Joe Cheshire, who served as Dave Evans’ attorney, in such a role.”

Wise’s response? Not to acknowledge that he based his column on an incorrect reading of Harper Lee’s book, but simply to change his frame of reference. When another correspondent subsequently pointed out the shortcomings of his rejecting the To Kill a Mockingbird analogy, Wise wrote, “Collin Finnerty ain’t Tom Robinson. And there’s nobody remotely worthy of Gregory Peck playing them in the movie, not even Evans’ attorney.”

Oh.

Unknown said...

Wise comes across as a pompous ass in his column. He's just another journalist pissed because he's losing stories to bloggers who get the information out quicker than he can.