A Guy Who Willfully Ignored and Minimized the Internet, Now Starts His Website After His Paper Folds

by Freneau on Mar 20, 2009 5:45 PM EDT

I don't know that much about the Internet, so you'll have to tell me if it was good or bad, but by the end of last week we were over 3,000 hits a day.

I'm not real sure what all the technical terms are. In my mind it's a Web site. We're providing news and coverage of what goes on. I'm not going to say what's a blog or what's not a blog because I don't even understand where the terminology "blog" comes from.

Really? You must have not read the Time and Newsweek (my favorite sources for week old coverage of events) stories about this crazy trend... five years ago.

But I've seen some Web sites where they just get into being a bunch of guys sitting around screaming and yelling at each other and stuff. We don't have that kind of setup. We don't have that type of interaction created. I don't feel that much different except it's hard to take a computer screen into the bathroom in the morning.

See, the internet is all just kicking and screaming and yelling. It's probably filled with people who make bathroom jokes too. A real reporter, a real journalist, he wouldn't give you that infantile material.

You know, the whole blog thing, I haven't gotten caught up in it, I guess, like a lot of people have. There are some sites that fans have put together for the Rockies. I read those things. There are some sites that fans have put together for the University of Wyoming. I read those things. I find them interesting. I've never been a guy who that type of stuff upsets.

But by all means, go visit Tracy Ringolsby's new website. Because, where else can you get generic Rockies coverage AND seething contempt for your audience and medium? It sounds like a real awesome place. I would tell you to bookmark it, but I don't wanna look to nerdy with my new-fangled lingo.

All snark aside, how completely dumb and insulting is this? Have you ever heard of someone opening, say, a shoe store, and publicly announcing, bragging really, "look, I know nothing about shoes and the few shoes stores I've seen... wow, what dirty nasty places, although really I don't even know, because I can never go in them. But anyway, I'm opening up a shoe store, I think you'll love it!"

A year or two ago, I had a brief non-encounter with Ringolsby. A third party (another blogger who had worked as a journalist) emailed me and asked if I might be interested in interviewing him. There was no reason to do so, but he was a fan of this site and wanted to throw me a bone, said he knew the guy from way back. I said sure, because, well... why not? Anyway, a few days later my contact emailed me back, sadly he said, Ringolsby had big-timed him, or me, or both of us. To be honest, I wasn't upset about it (I felt worse for the guy who tried to help me out) since there was, in truth, no point in me asking this guy random baseball questions. Nevertheless, I'd be lying if I didn't think of the whole exchange when I saw the headline of this Salon interview, from which all these quotes are taken.

One day I will publish my own Imaginary Conversations featuring an in-depth discussion between myself, Ringolsby, and my ultimate snub, Dick Kaegel.

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A++ would read again

Kansas City Royals: your 2006 and 2007 NL Central champions!

by mazoboom on Mar 20, 2009 6:04 PM EDT reply actions

nice

"Things could always be worse." - Buddy Bell

by buddyball on Mar 20, 2009 7:05 PM EDT reply actions

"except it's hard to take a computer screen into the bathroom in the morning."

I’ve never had a problem blogging from the john* on a laptop.

* In my mother’s basement, of course

by Top Ramen on Mar 20, 2009 10:44 PM EDT reply actions

I read

internet articles on my phone while in the john all the time…

The Snozberries taste like Snozberries

by labbadabba on Mar 22, 2009 1:41 AM EDT up reply actions

You read further in, though

and he’s not slagging off blogs or anything (except maybe Deadspin and its like by implication). If anything, he’s simply admitting his ignorance as to the mechanics of doing his work on the internet while also trying to make the (valid) point that in order for us to be able to have and participate in un-accessed fan-driven blogs like ours, we still need actual reporters — and if they have to resort to doing their reporting in the same way we do our opinionating, then that’s just what they’re going to have to do.

Of course, if papers keep closing and the reportage paradigm shifts to “actual reporters doing all their reporting on ‘personal’ blogs”, this is going to force the BBWAA to revisit their membership criteria yet again.

This space for rent.

by jonfmorse on Mar 20, 2009 11:11 PM EDT reply actions

I guess... its a matter of interpretation

Still, when you go out of your way to say, (paraphrasing) “oh, I don’t know the terminology, I don’t know why this may be popular, not my thing” I guess it could be taken as either being candid and honest or… he’s wearing it like a badge

it just seems very similar to the 10-20 similar things I’ve read about various innovations in sports (“I don’t even know what OPS is… but I’ll tell you what I do know…”)

its a genre at this point

by Freneau on Mar 21, 2009 1:01 AM EDT up reply actions

I have a tendency

to give beat reporters more leeway on this than I do columnists. Really, Tracy Ringolsby’s job for two decades has been to cover teams, as opposed to pontificating mindlessly ala Plaschke or Chass. He’s never had to concern himself with the internet or blogs or any of that, because his job is to cover a game, talk to people, and file a story, and he’s always had a newspaper waiting for him to do just that.

Which in a way circles back to my original point, I guess; the beat writers never considered “us” to be any sort of competition because of what they do. It’s the columnists that are threatened by bloggers and act out. So I’m more inclined to chalk Ringolsby’s comments up to mere honest bewilderment than any pre-conceived antipathy.

This space for rent.

by jonfmorse on Mar 21, 2009 1:48 AM EDT up reply actions

fair enough... I can see that

although at this point he’s sorta a hybrid between a beat reporter and a columnist and a FSN version of an ESPN talking head

by Freneau on Mar 21, 2009 1:51 AM EDT up reply actions

True

But he still follows the team daily rather than writing his columns after watching the game on the local RSN, which is the big difference (to me, anyway).

This space for rent.

by jonfmorse on Mar 21, 2009 4:25 AM EDT up reply actions

I hate to see newspapers close down.

Sports reporting can continue on just fine in the blog world. What I think will really suffer is actual news reporting. And that could really do the nation some damage. There are only a few newspapers that still do actual investigative reporting and they serve an important function in our democracy. If newspaperes shut down this social safeguard will go away. So far internet news sites have not shown they can financially support professional reporters to do the same things newspaper reporters did in the past.

Anyway, Ringolsby sounds like pretty much of a jerk and so I am indifferent to what he will do for the next 20 years of his life.

www.rockchalktalk.com for pretty good KU baseball coverage

by James Quinn on Mar 21, 2009 10:26 AM EDT up reply actions

b/c the newspapers did a great job with the iraq war, financial crisis, etc?

most newspapers can’t cover the national news anyway

local, is another story, but i don’t see why that can’t work on a web model

by Freneau on Mar 21, 2009 6:55 PM EDT up reply actions

The profession of reporting has sunk so low these last 20 years,

but it wasn’t always like this.

I still have hopes that the profession can recapture some sense of responsibility. Why? No good reason. Probably just fear because I don’t know what can replace professional journalism and I don’t like the thought of living in a society in which the only watchdogs left are lawyers and egomaniacal populists. I look at Berlusconi’s Italy and think I might see America’s future.

www.rockchalktalk.com for pretty good KU baseball coverage

by James Quinn on Mar 21, 2009 7:50 PM EDT up reply actions