There were many memorable events from the Blogs With Balls conference, most of which included Spencer Hall’s white suit or his suggestion to get a job clubbing baby seals for little money, then quit that job and take one as a blogger. That way, the job as a blogger won’t be a disappointment.

Yeah....so there was that....but there was also a heated tete-a-tete between Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog and covering everything from the reason why blogs exist to lazy traditional journalists who hate their jobs to how a writer for a site like Yahoo isn’t considered mainstream media. It was fascinating, it was vociferous and it was fueled by large amounts of caffeine and beer, all while casually leaning against a pool table in the green room at Blogs with Balls, in front of five or six thoroughly entertained on-lookers.

As I was prepping to moderate the next panel, with Steinberg as a speaker, I was trying to play referee during this dispute, hoping it would give me good material for the upcoming discussion. Steinberg did bring up the debate on the panel, but with five other MSM-types on stage (there’s a question to be asked about how many of “The Media’s Take” were actually traditional media) it was better served not to let that argument hijack the show.

So today, it hijacks this show. Both Greg Wyshynski from Yahoo and Dan Steinberg from the Washington Post join the show to continue their conversation from the weekend, while we get to listen along.

The entire argument stemmed from a cheap line Wyshynski used on his panel, stating that traditional media people have become jaded dicks who don’t care about their jobs anymore. And that’s why blogs have been able to flourish. He thinks that blogs were borne out of a void created by MSM due to apathy and that many (he makes note that he doesn’t think all) writers in MSM don’t have the passion for sports, or writing, that most bloggers have.

There were many sides to the debate between Steinberg and Wyshynski on Saturday and we try to get to as many as we can in a short amount of time. One sticking point was that Wyshynski said that in 20 years we’ll (bloggers, etc) be the people running the show. He was making the point that blogging is the new sports writing, and bloggers will be this generation’s version of the columnist...and even beat reporter as well. The way we consume news is different and this is what he sees as the future.

But isn’t that incongruent with his notion that all old MSM writers are jaded dicks? That point speaks more to the idea that the platform is what’s attractive to readers and the passion and pride this generation -- himself included -- have for the medium doesn’t really matter. So is it the blog, or the blogger, that’s the most important part of the equation? Steinberg answers this by bringing up someone like Tony Kornheiser.

1. “If Tony Kornheiser was 25-years old right now, obviously he’d be blogging. He wouldn’t be ‘old man making fun of bloggers’ he would obviously be blogging, because that’s what everyone is doing now. It’s a medium that, for a lot of reasons, is a lot more sensible in this day and age.”
   

The conversation turns to what’s being covered by MSM and what’s not, and how many sports have benefited from the advent of blogs, hockey specifically, because as sports sections got smaller and smaller, there was more of a percentage of coverage on the bigger and ‘more important’ sports, while coverage of the more superfluous sports went from lacking to missing. Blogs, and people like Wyshynski, filled that void. That leads to the question of what a place like the Washington Post is charged with the responsibility to do -- report the top stories or decide what the top stories are to report. In other words, the Post focuses so much on the Redskins because the Redskins coverage drives traffic. But if thousands of people are going to the DC hockey blogs for their Caps coverage and not to the

Post’s hockey coverage, is it fair to say the Redskins are really driving the traffic, or is it simply that the lack of Caps coverage is driving that traffic away, thus making the percentage of readers who care about what’s left even greater? Does coverage drive traffic or does traffic dictate coverage? And how does MSM figure that out?

We also talk about one of the themes of Saturday which was the importance of being able to face your subject as a member of the press. Some on the media’s take panel, including Jeff Pearlman and ESPN’s Amy K. Nelson agreed that it’s different when you write something about an athlete or sports figure and then have to go into the clubhouse to face that person the next day. They were using the Mariotti Model of cowardice to say that you can’t just write a slam piece and then duck and cover. But what about the fact that most people in the audience don’t have that kind of access to get in front of their subject? How can MSM tell bloggers they can’t be taken seriously if they don’t do actual reporting when in many cases they aren’t allowed in the room?

Wyshynski brings up a comment on his panel by Jason McIntyre, editor of The Big Lead, who stated that he doesn’t need to be in the locker room to tell the story and he can do it from the comfort of his couch. Deadspin’s tagline about not having access and favor is very similar to that, but both Wyshynski and Steinberg disagree with the concept. Access is important and the more access blogs can get -- like the the blogs they both do -- the better the coverage can be. Wyshynski thinks that telling people in the industry that fighting for equal access isn’t necessary isn’t the right thing to do. Bloggers should be pushing for access. They should be covering the sports because by and large, their coverage is far more dedicated and in-depth than the traditional media outlets. That said, they both understand that there are different blogs that cover a huge variety of things that all fall into the umbrella of sports. But to say that access isn’t important is short-selling the blog community.

But is Wyshynski the writer to be sticking up for the little guy when he works for Yahoo, a company far larger than the Washington Post, or nearly any other media company in the world? Can he defend the passion of the blogger and admonish the apathy of MSM when he’s one of them? How is working for Yahoo not mainstream media?

1. “This whole argument about audience and imprint and identification -- what does that somehow ruin my indie cred? Does that somehow dispel the fact that when I was working high school sports at a paper in suburban DC, I was writing hockey as a second job on the side to scratch and claw my way up? I just don’t understand that. It’s about the work. Judge the content of the work. I just think the fact that I’m at Yahoo now somehow makes me part of the machine, or something, is preposterous.”
   

So what do we do now? Where is this going to go? Both think that Blogs with Balls has staying power and can become like a Comic-Con (sans costumes I hope) for years to come. And the fact remains that the industry has changed. Yahoo has full-time bloggers. ESPN has full-time bloggers. Companies, many of which were represented at Blogs with Balls, were specifically created to capitalize on the blog boom. So seriously, where is it all going? I’m not sure one conversation, or even one weekend, is going to answer that. But Steinberg can have the last word...

1. “I always sort of go back to what I say, and at this point it may just be something I say and I don’t even know if it’s true, but I say that people who write compelling and interesting stuff that makes you laugh or makes you think of something you haven’t thought of -- people want to read that. And I don’t think that the actual medium matters that much. As long as you’re writing something that people want to read they’re going to find it and they’re going to read it.”
   

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