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Hey guys, sorry if this seems weird or misplaced, but I really had to say something after reading this.
Back in 2007, some guy founded Fansided. Billed as being "for intelligent sports fans by intelligent sportsfans", what this actually meant was that it was basically clickbait for people who actually click on clickbait. Fair enough - for whatever reason, people do click on this ****. That's their problem, not mine.
Of course, this begets the question: what, exactly, are fans going to write about, assuming that they don't have any actual insight into much of anything? Sure, there are occasional writers who either write exceptionally well or have a nuanced understanding of the game and the ability to communicate that understanding to an audience. But... what about all of those would-be writers who don't have any of these actual talents?
Not to fear, they can just write about the fact that other people are also writing things. Nobody cares, but with a misleading title, even complete non-events can be dressed up as something that actually matters. And up to this point, I'm fine with all of that. Sounds like a great way to trash your credibility, but clearly they're not going for the types of people who care about credibility. And hey, it's better than just making up rumors like PFT does.
Which brings us to this: http://fansided.com/2015/02/09/seahawks-draft-todd-gurley-replace-marshawn-lynch/
For starters, the piece is titled "Seahawks could draft Todd Gurley to replace Marshawn Lynch?" This title stands out for two reasons:
I guess this is a really handy time to remember rule 2 that I mentioned above: the headline is a question because there is no evidence that the answer is anything other than no. But still, I clicked over to si.com earlier today, and I went there rather than Bleacher Report or Fansided specifically because it isn't a ****hole full of un-sourced garbage... or at least I didn't think it was. Truth be told, it's been years since I regularly visited SI, but after how badly ESPN blew DeflateGate, I just really don't see any reason to give them my traffic anymore.
So I gave SI a shot. And when I clicked through and found an un-sourced, poorly written, misleading piece of garbage from Fansided where an SI article was supposed to be, I did some digging (in the form of a 2-second Google search). It turns out that SI and Fansided entered into an agreement in 2013, through which Fansided content would be pushed through SI.
That makes a ton of sense for Fansided: who wouldn't want that kind of exposure? But what about SI? Sure, it's cheap content, but is cheap content worth losing the trust in your brand that's been built up over the past 60 years? Well, these are the same guys who just laid off their entire photography department (apparently illustrations aren't important to Sports Illustrated), so I guess I should have already known the answer to that.
And that's where we are now. I bring this up because I think it's played a pivotal role in how this whole DeflateGate circus has gone down. Imagine if, instead of Chris Mortensen, it had been someone at Bleacher Report claiming that 11 of 12 balls were 2psi under. Would anyone have cared? Probably, but people would have been a lot more wary. The rest of the media may have even waited for some kind of confirmation of facts by a 'real' source before going into a full-on feeding frenzy.
So that really begs the question: why didn't they wait for corroboration? The answer, of course, is that Chris Mortensen is a trusted source™. He works for ESPN, and ESPN isn't Bleacher Report. It's a bunch of reporters with actual sources. At least in theory. In reality, as this SI example clearly demonstrates, ESPN and SI are no more credible than any other garbage outlet. They traded in their credibility for quick and easy content a long time ago.
And whoever in the NFL was persistently leaking **** to people like Mort and Glazer relied on that exact weird dynamic. That they could hand-deliver a story to ESPN or Fox Sports, and that story would a) be taken as gospel by ESPN/Fox Sports, with no fact checking or corroboration, and b) that, since it came from ESPN/Fox Sports, the general public would assume that these outfits had their **** together, and therefore they would take it as gospel too.
Pretty sad, really. As much as I don't like FanSided and Bleacher Report, at least they don't pretend to be something they're not. They're bottom-of-the-barrel clickbait ********, but we all know that. What really sucks is that SI and ESPN are exactly the same, but they're still trading on credibility that they build up in the previous century. I dunno what these guys' end game is, but I hope people realize them for what they are sooner rather than later.
Back in 2007, some guy founded Fansided. Billed as being "for intelligent sports fans by intelligent sportsfans", what this actually meant was that it was basically clickbait for people who actually click on clickbait. Fair enough - for whatever reason, people do click on this ****. That's their problem, not mine.
Of course, this begets the question: what, exactly, are fans going to write about, assuming that they don't have any actual insight into much of anything? Sure, there are occasional writers who either write exceptionally well or have a nuanced understanding of the game and the ability to communicate that understanding to an audience. But... what about all of those would-be writers who don't have any of these actual talents?
Not to fear, they can just write about the fact that other people are also writing things. Nobody cares, but with a misleading title, even complete non-events can be dressed up as something that actually matters. And up to this point, I'm fine with all of that. Sounds like a great way to trash your credibility, but clearly they're not going for the types of people who care about credibility. And hey, it's better than just making up rumors like PFT does.
Which brings us to this: http://fansided.com/2015/02/09/seahawks-draft-todd-gurley-replace-marshawn-lynch/
For starters, the piece is titled "Seahawks could draft Todd Gurley to replace Marshawn Lynch?" This title stands out for two reasons:
- Why include could and then also make it a question? "Will the Seahawks draft Todd Gurley?" Is an actual question. "The Seahawks could draft Todd Gurley" is just a statement of fact because... sure, it's possible. It could happen. But this is some weird bastardization that takes extra care to double down on making no real statement of any kind.
- It reminds me of a general rule of thumb that I learned a long time ago: anytime a headline is posed as a question, the answer is no. If there was any compelling evidence that the answer was yes, then the existence of that evidence would be the headline instead.
- This is how the second paragraph starts: "Albert Breer of the NFL Network believes that the Seattle Seahawks would be an ideal spot for Gurley to be drafted." Well ****, don't I feel duped. Here I was thinking that this article might be making an actual claim based on an actual source. **** me, right? As it turns out, some guy named Evan Massey decided that it was really important that he write an article based on the idle musings of Albert Breer, of all ****ing people, who is just another guy who writes random crap to fill out pages and get clicks. In short, this article has no source. It's pure idle speculation from some guy who I had never heard of until 10 minutes ago, and whose opinions I have absolutely no reason to care about.
- It contains this sentence: "Knee injuries are not as serious as they once were with all of the medical advancements." Seriously, guy? My 7th grade English teacher would've given me **** if I'd turned in a paper that contained that sentence.
I guess this is a really handy time to remember rule 2 that I mentioned above: the headline is a question because there is no evidence that the answer is anything other than no. But still, I clicked over to si.com earlier today, and I went there rather than Bleacher Report or Fansided specifically because it isn't a ****hole full of un-sourced garbage... or at least I didn't think it was. Truth be told, it's been years since I regularly visited SI, but after how badly ESPN blew DeflateGate, I just really don't see any reason to give them my traffic anymore.
So I gave SI a shot. And when I clicked through and found an un-sourced, poorly written, misleading piece of garbage from Fansided where an SI article was supposed to be, I did some digging (in the form of a 2-second Google search). It turns out that SI and Fansided entered into an agreement in 2013, through which Fansided content would be pushed through SI.
That makes a ton of sense for Fansided: who wouldn't want that kind of exposure? But what about SI? Sure, it's cheap content, but is cheap content worth losing the trust in your brand that's been built up over the past 60 years? Well, these are the same guys who just laid off their entire photography department (apparently illustrations aren't important to Sports Illustrated), so I guess I should have already known the answer to that.
And that's where we are now. I bring this up because I think it's played a pivotal role in how this whole DeflateGate circus has gone down. Imagine if, instead of Chris Mortensen, it had been someone at Bleacher Report claiming that 11 of 12 balls were 2psi under. Would anyone have cared? Probably, but people would have been a lot more wary. The rest of the media may have even waited for some kind of confirmation of facts by a 'real' source before going into a full-on feeding frenzy.
So that really begs the question: why didn't they wait for corroboration? The answer, of course, is that Chris Mortensen is a trusted source™. He works for ESPN, and ESPN isn't Bleacher Report. It's a bunch of reporters with actual sources. At least in theory. In reality, as this SI example clearly demonstrates, ESPN and SI are no more credible than any other garbage outlet. They traded in their credibility for quick and easy content a long time ago.
And whoever in the NFL was persistently leaking **** to people like Mort and Glazer relied on that exact weird dynamic. That they could hand-deliver a story to ESPN or Fox Sports, and that story would a) be taken as gospel by ESPN/Fox Sports, with no fact checking or corroboration, and b) that, since it came from ESPN/Fox Sports, the general public would assume that these outfits had their **** together, and therefore they would take it as gospel too.
Pretty sad, really. As much as I don't like FanSided and Bleacher Report, at least they don't pretend to be something they're not. They're bottom-of-the-barrel clickbait ********, but we all know that. What really sucks is that SI and ESPN are exactly the same, but they're still trading on credibility that they build up in the previous century. I dunno what these guys' end game is, but I hope people realize them for what they are sooner rather than later.