Leggo my EGO

This article is pretty f-in relevant to my life right now. It breaks down the catastrophic feud between newspaper sports writers and the emergence of sports bloggers. What I think the article fails to mention is:

1. The overwhelming ego of certain sportswriters. I say certain, but it's really a certain majority. Believe me, I've seen them. They know that they are doing what millions of people would think is "awesome" but they act cavalier about it, pretending it's more of a bother to them, that the athletes aren't nearly as fun when you actually meet them. They hold onto the inside, sometimes unflattering info they gather on these athletes like pirates booty, spilling it out at cocktail parties... just a way of ripping down the people they cover.

As you can tell, I don't understand this. Why are so many sportswriters so unbelievably grumpy and if they hate their jobs so much, why are they still doing it when so many would love to take their place? I still don't know the answer to this. 

2. Why is it so hard to compare good blogs against bad blogs? Is this so different from comparing good newspapers to bad? I don't think so. If we say somewhere about 15% of the newspapers out there are actually trustworthy, I'd argue the same thing about blogs. There are blogs that don't pretend to be news sources, so why are we acting like they are? 

There's a jealousy of this kind of freedom of expression in blogs. Newspaper writers don't get that. They mask it as 'responsibility,' but isn't the responsibility on the reader to some extent determine what information to believe?

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This argument boils down to ego vs. jealousy, mixed in with a whole lot of misunderstanding. When I was down at the blog summit yesterday, ESPN.com executive editor Rob King had some very interesting things to say about the purpose of the blog and where he saw it fitting into the greater journalism field. He said a few off the record things, but his main message wasn't about this blog, or any blog bringing down journalism, signaling the end. It was quite the opposite. 

Why are we always so against change?

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With all this being said, I can't really understand the hostility that lives on the internet. This whole living behind an avatar lifestyle that some people spend hours cultivating. I've never had the urge to scream at someone I don't know across the internet. How immature. That is one thing I hope will fizzle and die.