More Monday morning quarterbacking

In Jon Friedman's MarketWatch column, Robert Lipsyte is the latest to say sports writers and editors should have dug deeper into Barry Bonds/steroids when the signals were so obvious.

For the 1,000th time, the same question: Absent the leaked grand jury testimony -- or Bonds talking on the record -- just how was this story to be reported? A paper trail? Probably not. Sources (like a wronged girlfriend)? How can we be sure about the credibility there. Observing? Observing what?

I obviously respect Lipsyte, but nobody has given me a good answer as to what reporters were supposed to be doing on this front until illegally leaked grand jury testimony dropped in somebody's lap.

Talese on sports writing

Writer Gay Talese, who once was a sports writer for the New York Times talks about the business with Sports Illustrated's Richard Deitsch.

Moran goes to college

In today's Chicago Tribune, Teddy Greenstein writes about USA Today's Malcolm Moran leaving his writing job to take over as director of the Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State. Moran, who once worked for the Tribune, has covered countless big events in his 52 years and will bring a non-textbook wealth of experience to his new position.

Rapoport's farewell

Ron Rapoport, who I believe I met a couple of times and whose geographic path around the country I (very loosely) followed for a bit, writes his farewell column in today's Chicago Sun-Times. A very solid writer and newspaper professional who covered a lot of things over the years.

Assault on the Internet?

The "First Amendment of the Internet" -- Net Neutrality -- is apparently in jeopardy in legislation being considered by Congress. The issues are a bit beyond my range to weigh in heavily on, but here is an (admittedly partisan) huffingtonpost.com explanation of the issues involved by Adam Green. My understanding is that big internet providers are seeking the ability to set up a system in which the more you pay, the more accessible and faster your Website will be for the general public. From one wired.com article explaining this: "Broadband providers such as AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon Communications want to expand from flat pricing and also sell tiers of service based on the speed, reliability and security of the bandwidth used. While those providers have said they would not block access to the open internet, companies that sell products or services online want Congress to adopt stricter safeguards to ensure they are not pushed into a slower lane of the internet if they do not pay more for dedicated network service." Green's post has all sorts of links of interest, to petitions and other things.

'Sports as Soap Opera'

Mark Galli, in Christianity Today, of all places, laments the fact that in many papers, the game story is no longer about the game. It's an interesting take, since "conventional wisdom" in 2006 is that readers already know about the game when they get to their morning papers, so we need to go beyond the on-field action to give them something new. Galli argues the opposite.