The spin on Deadspin

The New York Times has a story today talking about the increasing relevance of deadspin.com. Will Leitch, who started the site, once covered the Cardinals for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "My hope is that every single person who visits the site comes away with something that no one else is telling them," he told the Times.

Kornheiser vs. Wise?

Harry Jaffe writes about the supposed feud between Washington Post sports columnists Tony Kornheiser, the beloved veteran, and relative newcomer Mike Wise. But it comes off as being more show biz than showdown.

And the NFL wanted to go back?

Joe Strupp of Editor and Publisher talks with sports writers to chronicle the horror of covering the 1982 Super Bowl, the last one played in Detroit. Among the problems: bad weather, late or broken down transportation and an ill-timed arrival and departure by Vice President Bush. They're hoping for better this time around.

Also rans

The Washington City Paper writes about the Washington Post's decision to drop charts and entries from Laurel Park and Pimlico. Writer Dave McKenna wonders how long they'll be able to get away with it; the Baltimore Sun did something similar a while back but wound up putting them back in after reader complaints. Certainly, this wouldn't have worked 25 years ago, but with the Internet, horse players now have plenty of places to find results. I'm guessing they're gone for good. Also, veteran turf writer Joe Kelly notes that the Sun used to have a rule against giving results over the phone and said most papers probably did. He's right; every place I ever worked, we told callers it was illegal to give them over the phone -- whether it was really true or not.

Hard to imagine

The Palm Beach Daily News writes about sports editor Mike Strauss, and with good reason -- he's been working in newspapers for 75 years. And at 93, he's not ready to retire yet.

Slate on the Redskins, others

Jack Shafer at Slate weighs in on the efforts of Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder (and others) to control the information disseminated about their teams by purchasing or running media outlets like radio stations and fan sites. His take on the modern sports writer is, in most cases, about 30 years out of date. I do, however (and always have) agree that entertaining readers is an extremely important part of sports writing and separates it from the work of reporters in other sections.

East Coast bias?

Dave Doyle of foxsports.com looks into whether this is fact or myth in this story posted today. The case is made by those on both sides of the debate. I tend to agree with the notion that it might have been the case somewhat when the only way to get information was in East Coast dailies that couldn't get West Coast scores into the paper, but that the situation has changed drastically with 24-hour sports news on TV and radio and, of course, the Internet.

Where I work, our writers get accused of it all the time -- we get a lot of "biased New Yorkers," too. Of course, that ignores the fact that those writers are based in Ohio, Kansas, Florida, California and yes, one in New York -- and that they come from completely disparate backgrounds.

Um, never mind

Good sports sections have good planning and preparation, and the Indianapolis Star was certainly ready for the Colts winning the Super Bowl. The downside, of course, is when the thing you planned for fails to materialize. Editor & Publisher writes about the Star's best-laid plans -- including special sections, victory editions, 20 staffers at the Big Game and a book -- that went down the tubes when the Colts lost in the divisional playoffs to the Steelers. "It is a big letdown," said Tim Wheatley, the paper's assistant managing editor/sports. "But we are on to the next thing. At least now we've got a great plan for next year."

Campaigns against writers

Part of me doesn't even want to dignify it by noting, but it is being discussed in the sports media, and I'm certainly not worried about the Globe listening, so what the heck. A site called bostonsportsmedia.com is trying to drum up a campaign to get veteran scribe Ron Borges fired. It will fail, of course. When those things start actually being taken seriously, this business has devolved into a place I don't particularly want to be.