IS ON THE TRADE RUMOR TRAIL
Last week, as Raul Ibanez's reputation was getting kicked around the blogosphere like a hacky sack, numerous media outlets received an e-mailed press release about disgraced NBA referee Tim Donaghy.
It noted that Donaghy would be getting out of prison next week and that he had been assaulted by a fellow inmate, one who apparently had access to both the New York mob and a heavy object.
Newspapers such as The Inquirer attempted to confirm the legitimacy of the company issuing the release, Executive Prison Consultants, and to contact officials at the Florida prison camp where the ex-referee was serving a 15-month sentence for his role in a betting scheme.
Meanwhile, as those reporters awaited return calls to confirm the unusual facts cited in the release, sports bloggers already were busily spreading the unadulterated story, accompanied by instant responses heaping doses of unsubstantiated opinion about both Donaghy and his attacker.
Those two cases - the Donaghy news and, especially, the Web-fueled speculation on whether Ibanez's gaudy statistics might be drug-enhanced - raised now-familiar questions about the contrast, and the friction, between bloggers and what they like to call the MSM, the mainstream media.
Is what bloggers do journalism? Is what journalists do passe? Should bloggers assume the same standards as journalists? Should the MSM ignore or embrace them? And are the two entities performing the same function or something inherently different? And what about mainstream media journalists who blog for their newspapers?
Just one thing seems certain: In a rapidly changing media environment, answers are hard to come by.
"They [bloggers] are doing some great things," said Mike Hoyt, the executive editor of the Columbia Journalism Review. "In many ways, they're helping the conversation get bigger. But the optimist in me hopes that at some point some of the time-tested old-media standards will rub off on them.
"Whether you're a blogger or a reporter, you ought to know that there's a difference between speculating with your buddies in a bar and doing so in a public forum."
Sometimes, as happened in the aftermath of the Ibanez post on a little-known Web site called Midwest Sports Fans (MSF), disagreements about that difference can result in a pitched battle between old and new media.
Not long after The Inquirer gave wider exposure to the original Ibanez speculation, the Internet was teeming with widely varying opinions on the Phillies outfielder and on bloggers.
The White Sox fan who triggered it all, JRod, real name Jerod Morris, found himself defending blogs on national television, a sometimes-intimidated-looking guest on ESPN's Outside the Lines.
Bloggers like Morris insist that even though their Web site fodder frequently looks and reads like fact, it's most typically speculation based on mainstream-media reporting, 21st-century street-corner talk for information-addicted fans.
The best blogs, defenders say, are more cleverly written than most journalism and chock full of useful data. Their authors and aficionados can't understand why reporters like to characterize them all as pajama-clad, basement-dwelling geeks.
"I'm just trying to kind of create some conversation, put some stuff out there," explained A.J. Daulerio, the Bucks County-born editor-in-chief of the wildly popular sports blog Deadspin. "I think you can take the gossip side and the salacious side and the journalism side and try to make this whole neat product. . . . Maybe it's complete horse- . . . but we can fix that later."
Not surprisingly, many journalists saw the Ibanez case as a perfect example of a problem with which their industry continues to wrestle. To them, bloggers are more than just a threat. They are mean-spirited, irresponsible, and bound by no rules.
"I've come to find out that there are some good sites out there," said H.G. "Buzz" Bissinger, the best-selling author and a former Inquirer reporter. "But for the most part, they're just filled with unreported, unsubstantiated rumors that, in many cases, are posted anonymously.
"They're speculative, based on no reporting, but yet they can cast deep doubts and shadows on someone. Raul Ibanez can say he doesn't take steroids, and there's no proof he has. Yet he has to keep answering these questions."
Much of what irritates journalists is the standard-free environment in which some bloggers operate. It's easy to be provocative and fast, they contend, when you're writing off the top of your head and without rules.
And given the Wild West nature of the Internet, there probably is no way that's going to change anytime soon.
Photos: 2009 Phillies 
