I've never had much use for blogs. I've never liked them, never paid attention to them, never had any real interest in them. The only "blogs" I've followed were those written by professional tennis players when they are at different tournaments in different cities around the world. But I wouldn't call them blogs per say, more like online journals for fans such as myself.
Blogging as a new media has never really impressed me much. I am a very traditional person and like the media the way it is. I like newspapers, television broadcasts, and radio broadcasts. I like the Internet because of its vast available resources and such. However, I am a very skeptical person and blogging just screams "unreliable" to me (although I am very skeptical, too, of the traditional media). The Internet, as great as it is, is just as bad. I never liked the fact that everyday people can write something on the Internet in the form of a blog and have it be considered news. I don't completely trust it. I am more likely to trust what is written by more conventional news sources and professional journalists and make my own judgements on it than I am to trust a random blogger writing a "news story" to get recognition for themselves.
However, the incident involving University of Connecticut head basketball coach, Jim Calhoun, and independent blogger, Ken Krayekse, in which Calhoun verbally attacked Krayekse for asking him about his salary, shed a glaring light on the continuous downfall of mainstream media. The once reliable, trustworthy mainstream media got embarassed by Krayeske. The question should have been asked by one of the mainstream reporters, which Krayeske so boldly pointed out. This question, with the help of Calhoun's infamous response, sparked an interest in the particular situation that otherwise wouldn't have ever been there.
I have respect for Krayeske for asking that question when he did and then standing up for himself when he was verbally attacked by Calhoun. But I think any journalist has to be prepared for a reaction like Calhoun's, even though it was unprecedented. I think sports journalists, and journalists in general, need to go back to the fundamentals of journalism in order to save the dying art. Blogging continues to take the world by storm, leaving conventional journalism in the dust. But if it's the bloggers and independent reporters who are going to ask the "controversial" questions and be willing to dig without fear of reprisal, what do they think is going to happen?
