Buzz Bissinger does not think kindly of sports blogs. As he righteously decreed on HBO a few moments ago, blogs, specifically Will Leitch's Deadspin, are home of the most bile, least common denominator, despicable filth in all of the world, driving a fork in the formerly cordial civilization that we used to live in. In an ironic tirade that will undoubtedly soon find home on youtube, he pelted Leitch with accusations of fostering an ill-informed, unjust, and explicit medium. I should mention that he did this in a flurry of expletives by quoting other writers while apparently not understanding the difference between blogs and commentators.

I'm not really going to waste my time defending Leitch; his success and relative internet fame prove that he does create a valuable commodity, that being the entertainment of his readers. Buzz Bissinger thinks that the integrity of journalism is under attack from blogs, and he rushes to defend it. I think a much greater point and societal flaw here is what he is attempting to suppress, the act of a human being forming and keeping his own opinion.

Journalism will survive the Internet, although newspapers might not. People will always want to read about sports or politics or celebrities, and so there will always be a career field for sportswriters, politicos, and idiots. The key is for media members to adapt to new technology and to find a way to produce a better product in a changing market. It will be a difficult transition process for a lot of people, but consumers will benefit and the world will be better for it. It's called capitalism; it's a pretty cool thing.

Well reasoned opinions, on the other hand, are in much greater danger. When Michael Wilbon or Buzz Bissinger say that sports blogs are useless and harmful because they lack credibility and experience, they are essentially trying to stifle opinion. I'm not sure how difficult a line this is to draw for some accomplished journalists, but here's the pattern of thought that breeds successful web writers.

We all watch the same things on TV. In the Internet age, basically any fact that you want to know about anything is available within a few minutes. The information gap between journalists and fans is rapidly closing. Therefore, critically thinking people can take this information, combine it with their personal experiences, and create something we call an "opinion." We then relay those opinions to people through available mediums (Hark! The Internets!), and most of it winds up as useless clutter around the web, read by basically no one (like me!). It doesn't harm anyone because no one is forced to read anything they don't want to. However some people just like to write, so they'll do it regardless of audience. Amongst this huge pool of people, there will be some that stand out and develop a wide audience. They separate themselves by being extraordinarily funny, having a unique perspective, writing extremely well, or analyzing things in new and innovative ways, or maybe just being outrageous and crude (and hilarious). There is a ton of competition in the marketplace on the Internet, and the best of all these amateurs end up being quite good, albeit generally targeted at a younger audience.

So what part is unacceptable to the sanctimonious main-stream media types? Is it the common man forming an opinion? Is it the expressing of that opinion? The democratic nature in gaining an audience? Or is it just that they are bitter over losing audiences and money to new competition and have to justify it somehow. I suspect it's the latter, but if you break down their arguments it seems they have the greatest problem with letting the consumer choose what they perceive to be an inferior product.

So the establishment certainly has incentive to suppress opinion making and individuality. This is not limited to journalism. If you work for a corporation and are particularly headstrong, you probably either a leader or not particularly liked amongst the bosses. You are not supposed to think differently, you are supposed to think in the constraints they give you. In school, it is generally discouraged in adolescence to speak out or to have unacceptable opinions. If you stand out, you are likely to lie somewhere between being a nuisance and being unacceptable. Don't worry; they'll teach you what's acceptable. Society trains us not to stand out and be different, because unique perspectives are often not beneficial to the people who are currently leading society, in fact these new opinions are often hostile of them.

I should be clear to differentiate being different for the sake of being different- which is pointless- and gathering different perspectives given the same information. Eventually, companies and businesses will reward those who think critically, but we are trained almost from birth to avoid it, to not stand out, to not upset anyone. It is also important to learn how to express opinions in a manner tasteful to society, but that is just a tangential issue.

I think it's ironic, though, that I'm not expressing any real independent or innovative thought. I'm just combining the hodgepodge of opinions, mostly philosophy and economics, that I've read and respected and molding my own from it. So I guess I have an alternative theory. New opinions and theories only come around once in a great while. In the meantime, originality is achieved by those of us who collect different varieties of ideas and amalgamate them into a gigantic algorithm. When we process new events into our sophisticated algorithm, we come up with creative opinions. To maximize creativity and originality, it is wise to complicate the algorithm as much as possible, i.e. diversify your knowledge in different fields. Those with a homogenized process in incestuous professions will wind up far more predictable and disposable than those who are open-minded. Think for yourself, but it'll be to your benefit to be as open-minded as possible to other rational thinkers.