Sports Guy Makes A Case For Newspapers

It's crazy how Bill Simmons, a guy who writes about sports for a living, can be so on point about non-sport issues. At least much more so than other guys. Anyway, while talking about Kevin Garnett's injury, he gets into the newspaper issue:

There's a hidden sub-story lurking here: It involves the fall of newspapers, lack of access and the future of reporting, not just with sports but with everything. I grew up reading Bob Ryan, who covered the Celtics for the Boston Globe and remains the best basketball writer alive to this day. Back in the 1970s and early '80s, he was overqualified to cover the team. In 1980, he would have sniffed out the B.S. signs of this KG story, kept pursuing it, kept writing about it, kept working connections and eventually broken it. True, today's reporters don't get the same access Ryan had, but let's face it: If 1980 Bob Ryan was covering the Celtics right now, ESPN or someone else would lure him away. And that goes for the editors, too. The last two sports editors during the glory years of the Globe's sports section were Vince Doria and Don Skwar ... both of whom currently work for ESPN.

For the past few years, as newspapers got slowly crushed by myriad factors, a phalanx of top writers and editors fled for the greener pastures of the Internet. The quality of nearly every paper suffered, as did morale. Just two weeks ago, reports surfaced that the New York Times Company (which owns the Globe) was demanding $20 million in union concessions or it'd shut down the Globe completely. I grew up dreaming of writing a sports column for the Globe; now the paper might be gone before I turn 40. It's inconceivable. But this Garnett story, and how it was (and wasn't) covered, reminds me of "The Wire," which laid out a blueprint in Season 5 for the death of newspapers without us fully realizing it. The season revolved around the Baltimore Sun and its inability (because of budget cuts and an inexperienced staff) to cover the city's decaying infrastructure. The lesson was inherent: We need to start caring about the decline of newspapers, because, really, all hell is going to break loose if we don't have reporters breaking stories, sniffing out corruption, seeing through smoke and mirrors and everything else. That was how Season 5 played out, and that's why "Wire" creator David Simon is a genius. He saw everything coming before anyone else did.

Much like the time when the NBA was sucking away talent from college basketball by drafting (and scouting) teens (remember when ESPN actually televised LeBron James' high school game?) the Internet is taking some of best and brightest away from local newspaper. What's left? The stupid newspeople Oliver Willis deplores.

While there are decent sites like TPM, the truth is most blogs react to newspaper stories as opposed to doing their own investigations. Your average blogger just doesn't have the time or resources; and if they did, their blogs wouldn't be half as diverse as they are now.

Sure, there are some cases for letting the newspapers die, but until we have a viable alternative we should consider saving those who aren't being run by the stupid and t