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April 12, 2010
The thing about jokes is that they are rarely funny if nobody but you is in on it. That’s why the “it was a joke” defense always comes across so lame. Far too often these days we see talking heads and media members use inflammatory statements and personal attacks to draw attention and traffic their way, and then when called out on it, they proclaim “oh, I was only joking”. It’s a disturbing trend in journalism and it magnifies the extent to which mainstream media is struggling to understand how to adapt to the blogging culture.
If you haven’t heard about or read yet, the New York Daily News’ Frank Isola is the latest to pull off this stunt, and this time it was shot directed straight at one of our own. Over the weekend, the Plain Dealer’s Brian Windhorst wrote that the feel coming out of the LeBron James camp is that the superstar is leaning toward staying in Cleveland as of now. The article wasn’t authoritative in tone to the point of saying this thing is over or anything like that. Rather, it was an even keeled report of what Brian’s sources were telling him.
Well, Mr Isola sure didn’t like what he heard, and so rather than do any “reporting” of his own, Isola seemingly lashed out inexplicably at Windhorst and took some rather low blows. In a piece on his Knicks Nation blog titled “Sorry buddy, but if LeBron stays put, so do you”, he did a number on Windhorst, proclaiming, amongst other things, that Windy wants to leave Cleveland more than LeBron does and that he’s already openly maneuvering for Knicks beat jobs in case LeBron goes there:
First things first. The writer of the article, Brian Windhorst, has now known LeBron since the self proclaimed King was a high school sensation in Akron. (Brian thinks of himself as a sensation as well.)
I’ve got Jerome James on my speed dial and Windhorst has LeBron. Okay, so life isn’t fair. I also know that Brian has his resume sitting in the sports office of every New York newspaper and is ready to pounce on one of our jobs should LeBron sign with the Knicks.
I sometimes think that Brian wants to come to New York more than LeBron. He’s a huge “Sopranos” fan and fancies himself as LeBron’s underboss.
I’m guessing it absolutely killed Brian to write that LeBron is leaning toward staying. It must be true because Brian desperately wants to get out of Ohio and is essentially the best thing the Knicks have going for them: a spy on the inside working on their behalf.
But it appears that LeBron’s next move will be to re-sign with Cleveland for the next three years. As for Brian, it essentially means the parole board has rejected his early release from Cleveland. Three more years for you as well, buddy.
First thing first. I have no idea if it’s true that Windhorst wants out of Cleveland. It could very well be true he will follow LeBron wherever he goes. In responding to Isola’s article (more on that in a minute), Windhorst didn’t deny any of it. While on a personal level I would hate to lose Windhorst as a Cavs writer (as if losing LeBron wouldn’t be bad enough on its own), how could I possibly blame someone with close ties to LeBron for wanting to cover them their entire career. What I take issue with in Isola’s article is the premise and motivation of the whole thing to begin with.
Suppose everything Isola wrote is true. If that’s the case, it is unacceptable on a professional level to call out and expose a colleague like this just because you have a case of sour grapes and don’t like the implications of the facts being reported. Rather than lashing out at LeBron for possibly considering spurning the Knicks, Mr. Isola instead decides to shoot the messenger with a bunch of low blows.
On the other hand, let’s suppose that what he wrote about Brian isn’t true. In that case, it’s an even more reprehensible act to write a hack story like this in the name of “fun”. With no context to base this on whatsoever, there’s nobody else in on the “joke”. How did Isola intend for everyone to take this piece? We were to just assume that he was having some fun with the situation? I don’t buy that one bit.
For his part, of course Windhorst took the high road. As we’ve seen by now, Brian always stays above the fray and never gets personal or political in his writings. So when Vince Grzegorek reached out to him for comment on the piece, Brian’s measured response was hardly shocking, in part saying:
Frank is a good guy and has been one of the best NBA writers for years. He’s well known in New York for his strong reporting and I consider him a friend in the business. He likes to have fun in his blog and I’ve certainly had fun at the New York media’s expense for years.
Brian later put up this on his Twitter account:
Let’s put this to rest. Frank Isola is a friend. He was having some fun on his blog. LeBron/2010 is a demanding complex monster in NY & CLE
So fine. No harm, no foul? I guess you could say that. For his part, Frank Isola was on the Dugout Sports Show yesterday afternoon and addressed this issue. He says the whole thing was tongue in cheek, and he thought everyone would realize it based on the Jerome James line. If you listen to the whole interview, Isola certainly comes across as a pretty likeable guy and an extremely reasonable individual. It makes it easier to believe that this whole thing was one big joke. However, this takes us back to the original point and the question of whether a joke is really funny if nobody else is in on it.
In the interview with Glenn Moore, Isola essentially writes it off as being obviously lighthearted because it was “just a blog”. I’m not sure why it’s so difficult for members of the mainstream media to understand what a blog is and what it’s role in society today is, but these guys continue to miss the mark. Perhaps it’s unfortunate that Deadspin remains the most noticeable sports blog in existence. Not because Deadspin isn’t good at what they do, but because it seems to create a disconnect in perception among those in the mainstream who refuse to dig any deeper than the surface, and thus assume that the entire blogging medium is a bunch of jokers who revel in nothing but sarcasm and being snarky.
Speaking for this site as a whole, we take what we do pretty seriously. Sure, sometimes we even probably take ourselves a little too seriously, but for us, this is a labor of love and passion, and we strive to excel at what we do. We’re not above the occasional humorous piece and attempts at jamming our tongue into our cheek, but it’s all about maintaining context. When you look at Isola’s piece, where is the motivation for it? What purpose does writing something as ridiculous as that even serve? It’s not humorous and it’s so easily misinterpreted. But because Isola seems to think that blogs are all just a joke anyway, we would all get it.
Even in his interview he makes the point that newspaper writers aren’t paid much to begin with, and now are being “forced” to write blogs and have Twitter accounts. Any time someone feels forced into doing something, it’s going to promote a climate of laziness. If you don’t feel inspired to do something, the proper level of thought and planning is never going to be there. Because he views blogs as pretty much a throw away extra level of content, I don’t think he ever considered for one second how his post would be perceived by anyone other than himself. One of the first lessons I ever learned about writing is to always consider who your audience is and why you are telling them whatever it is you’re trying to convey. When you lose sight of those 2 principles, you create a schism between yourself and your readers, and that’s when you have misunderstandings such as this one.
Isola lost sight of who he was writing to and why he was writing it in the first place. Even though he explained that it was all a joke, he never addressed why he was making this joke in the first place. In his interview he claimed he was actually just reporting that Windhorst was saying that there’s some belief that LeBron is leaning toward staying. That point is lost in a mangled mess of cheap shots and inside jokes.
I harbor no ill will toward Frank Isola, nor do I think he’s a talentless hack. I just think he’s misguided when it comes to the blogging medium and social media in general. Brian Windhorst is a big boy and he’ll be just fine. That’s why none of this bothers him and he’s so willing to roll with it. At the end of the day, a blog post like Isola’s isn’t going to affect Windhorst’s job with the Plain Dealer or the freelance contributing work he does for places like ESPN.com. It’s not offensive to Windhorst, but it is offensive to bloggers who care about this medium.
Perhaps now I’m the one being too serious and worrying too much about this stuff, but it’s frustrating when people aren’t held accountable for losing track of the scope of the words they are being paid to write. I would expect no different of anyone who reads any of my work. When we miss the mark here, our readers tend to put us back on track in the comments section, and we are reactive to that because our readers are the only reason we do this in the first place. It’s all about accountability, learning from our mistakes, and always striving to be better at what we do. So for that, we can thank Mr. Isola, because today he made me realize that we all still have a lot of work to do to become better understood as people who are serious about what we do.
32 Comments
I’ve been mulling over a “Some Hipster Responds to Some Bro’s Basketball Article” version of Isola’s piece since I read it yesterday, but then again blogs are for jokes not interpretive dance.
His piece did show that he is at least a little scared that Windy could be taking his job. But Windy would never be working at the Daily News. He’d get a much better gig than that.
Well said, Andrew.
Very well said!
Very well said!
“I don’t think he ever considered for one second how his post would be perceived by anyone other than himself.”
BREAKING NEWS! NEW YORKERS DON’T CARE ABOUT ANYONE ELSE OTHER THAN THEMSELVES!
now back to your regularly scheduled comments…
Don’t quit your day job, Frank.
in all seriousness, it sucks that something like this creates that “one step forward, two steps back” feeling. as biased as i may be, i like to think that sites like this are helping redefine the term “blog.”
its also a shame that new yorkers, with the help of espn, insist on it being new york vs the world. and by world i of course mean the rest of the US, but im sure some of them like to think that they can take on certain 3rd world countries…
again….I can’t wait till this summer and this whole NY/Cle thing is put to rest and I can stop hearing about all of this.
Windhorst fell many many many notches in my book.
He didn’t even deny any of this.
To hell with him.
Yeah, Isola’s “just a blog” comments are pretty dumbfounding since political bloggers have been getting press passes to the State of the Union for years and Drudge Report pretty much drives the news cycle of Fox News.
@Jack
Seriously? Why? If Windy saw it as a joke (and Isola claims that he called Brian and cleared the article with him first) why would he feel the need to disavow any of it?
“If Windy saw it as a joke (and Isola claims that he called Brian and cleared the article with him first) why would he feel the need to disavow any of it?”
This is exactly what I also thought when Windy replied.
Additionally disavowing the article gives it credit. Maybe Windy is ignoring it because it’s crap?
Amazing article, writer formally known as rockking. I like how mainstream media decries the blogs, but at the same time when they try to blog they do the exact same thing they are putting down.
just to show the ESPN bias toward NYC, if this had happened the other way around (LeBron camp saying he’s leaning toward NYC) it would be the 1-A story on SportsCenter and it would have prompted 5 articles on ESPN.com.
Instead, not even a mumble form the talking heads.
Ol’ Frank may not be a talentless hack, but that was a hack piece of writing anyway you cut it.
What I find even more bizarre is the implications beyond the piece is suggesting about Windy. I’ve been reading Windy for years and I never got the implications that he was anything beyond a principled, unbiased reporter in any of his work.
Windy is the best in the biz. If he wants to leave Cleveland and go to New York, he doesn’t need LBJ. He’d get hired as a beat reporter in a second with or without Lebron.
come on @Jack… are we really offended by this? windhorst has been the cosell to lebron’s muhammed ali for years now. sure, i love the guy, but did you really think that guy was into the cavs outside of lebron? i personally have a lot of respect for the guy whether this stuff is true or not. he’s just a fantastic writer/reporter.
DocZeus… excellent point. Windhorst is already one of the most respected NBA beat writers around. If he wants to go to New York, he doesn’t need LeBron to lead the way.
Friends or not, the blog post is nothing but a bunch of cheap shots and it makes Frank Isola sound incredibly bitter. Anyone who writes a blog knows that you shouldn’t write while you’re upset. It’s the same reason that you don’t go shopping for food when you’re hungry… you end up getting a lot more crap than you thought you would.
I think you can write when you’re angry. It can be extremely cathartic and therapeutic. However, you shouldn’t hit the ‘Submit’ button when angry. Isola should have written that post on his own, and then when done, select all and delete.
Double Touche`
Joke or not..I’m one of those there is a hint of truth in every lie (or “Joke”)kind of guys. Maybe he exaggerated it for the purpose of entertainment, but I believe deep down there is some resentment lurking. Right now this guy did a take-down on Brian, but I’m willing to bet there is going to be quite a few more aimed at LeBron once he re-signs here. I don’t think New Yorkers are going to take kindly to be jilted by LeBron, especially since he is choosing a place like Cleveland over their city. It’s going to be fantastic really.
As a print journalist, there really aren’t many better markets than New York City. If Windhorst would leave to beat write for the Knicks, I don’t think I could blame him. Yes, the team’s horrible – but you get your voice out to more people than you ever would covering Cleveland. I think if anything about NYC and the hype-machine is true, it’s this: New York media is far louder and more noticeable, and as a writer it has to be very appealing. If you’re in politics, you go to DC. Otherwise, you go to New York.
That being said, there are plenty of print journalists that do things like Andrew so astutely pointed out. They obtusely label ‘blogs’ as crap, in order to further legitimize their writing, or to feel better about themselves. For every well-established journalist who has taken to blogging (Roger Ebert for instance), there are tens if not hundreds who will demean and try to lessen the importance of blogs, if only to try and keep their head above the water for a few minutes longer.
Print journalism is important. Very much so. The methods by which we get our information are surely changing, but having paid journalists whose livelihood depends on getting information and disseminating it to an audience is as important as ever. While the overall economics of the industry are unsure, the need for information is still there. Whether we read a paper in print, or on our RSS feed, or on a new device like a Kindle or iPad is not important (though the dynamics are important in order for the content providers to improve their economic situation) – what is important is that the content is there, regardless of ‘form’.
Blogs are different things to different people, to be sure. This site to me is more a community than anything else. Yes – there is some pretty good writing that happens here from time to time, but there’s also a great group of folks here, most importantly the people that read and comment and take part in what we do. What pisses me off the most is when people are dismissive of something that is threatening to them, whether they realize it or not. Isola doesn’t have half the community going on at the Daily News that we’ve got here, and he never will. There is a lot of work that goes in to the work done here (at least by others). It’s a shame that the off-the-cuff ‘it was just a blog’ type comment is used by so many writers. If the internet’d been around when they started writing, they wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss things.
I agree 100% with Denny. In all of my support for blogs, I have always made sure to point out that newspapers are not the enemy. We need real journalists like Brian Windhorst out there on the front lines, digging up the inside info for us.
I just wish the MSM could understand the blog’s role in all of this, and realize that we do have value as well and we too bring something unique to the table.
This reminds me of the Raul Ibanez controversy, where a blogger said he wouldn’t be surprised if he was on steriods. People ran with it as if he was reporting fact and he ended up on ESPN apologizing for stating his opinion. As noted before, the term “blog” means many different things to many different people. Hopefully sooner or later, blogs will be divided into different kinds with different ideals and purposes, and people will take themselves more seriously when they are recognized as “news providers” and vice versa
Why do I picture Denny having a Frank the Tank “What happened? I blacked out” moment right now?
I want to know if it’s true that Windhorst has his resume out to every newspaper in New York.
[…] of noise on twitter. Windhorst briefly “responded” to it. Now it’s being called “tongue-in-cheek”. John Hollinger, a good friend of Windhorst, was not a […]
WHERE WAS THE SARCASIM FONT WHEN IT WAS NEEDED. SOMEONE GO SEND HIM A MEMO.
Jack was just taking the clever satire of the original Isola piece and upping the cleverness and satireness antes. Didn’t you guys get the joke? Wasn’t it funny? Come on, it’s just a comment section on a blog.
@Alex – Thank you.
To hold blogs up to any kind of a standard is ridiculous. They are for any genius or idiot to write about their day, their thoughts, their humor, their interests, etc. Blogs are intrinsically important only because they give everyone a voice, not what that voice says. So Isola invalidating his blog by not taking it “seriously” has no bearing on the importance of yours.
Charlie, that would only be true if everyone felt the same way about blogs as you do. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. There’s long been a trickle down effect of negative perception toward blogs stemming from those with the largest platform and the loudest voices having the least understanding about what blogs are.
As Denny said, “blogs are different things to different people.” Your opinion that there’s a negative perception of blogs is way overblown and you’re painting with an incredibly broad brush with that statement. Just because WFNY spends a lot of time writing about CLE sports and tries really hard doesn’t mean it should be taken seriously or deserves respect, or maybe it should, that’s the point. Isola doesn’t give blogs credit. Ok. He’s not wrong to say that. It’s the internet, and it’s not for the light-hearted.
Again, that would all be true if everyone felt the same way about blogs as you do.