Blazer Blog Wars

For a paper whose recent restructuring promised a more web-friendly presence (and a weekly print addition, sorta like us but we have the better escort ads), it’s odd that Portland Tribune sports reporter (and excellent Blazers writer) Kerry Eggers would drop these bat-shit crazy illogical comments about blogs in a recent interview:

I don’t like blogs at all, and I’ll tell you why. I don’t think they have the integrity of a newspaper or a website. Bloggers don’t necessarily have the credentials that a real accredited journalist has – some of them do but some of them don’t – so you don’t know what you’re getting. Anyone can sit at home with their computer and write and consider themselves and expert while their out there in the world having people read their stuff.

Way to seem like a cranky old dinosaur. He also hates the damn kids hanging out on his lawn as well.

Ironically Egger’s comments came in an interview with the Blazers best blogger, Wendell Maxey of HoopsWorld, whose devotion to covering the team (I can give a first-hand testament of Maxey’s “integrity,” since I often share a press row seat with the man and he is definitely a “real accredited journalist”) is second to none. Ben Golliver of the freakishly in-depth BlazersEdge blog also weighs in, calling out Eggers for his comments, especially when the man phones-in posts like this (no one wants to hear about your dreams, even if they involve Hakeem Olajuwon).

As Golliver–an incredibly talented blogger in his own right–pointed out, Eggers comments don’t seem to reflect the view of the paper (or at least not Tribune editor Dwight Jaynes who commented, “I don’t agree with Kerry’s comments”), but it’s a troubling sign given the Trib‘s recent transitions. Plus, as any hoops fan with a dial-up connection knows, the best NBA coverage comes not from print/radio/television “experts” (i.e. John Canzano or Stephen A. Smith), but from blogs like Henry Abbott’s True Hoop (which, ironically, I believe he does while sitting “at home”). It’s a shame Eggers can’t see the writing on the wall (even if it’s on a blog), that his beloved medium is changing, and if doesn’t keep up, he’ll be like those old bones pictured above. Except, you know, without a laptop.