Division of Labor

Now for those of you who know anything about sports, you know that ESPN is just plain stupid. I'm sorry, but it is. If you tune in to something like Baseball Tonight all you get is fodder for something like Fire Joe Morgan. But there is a puzzle here.

Anyone can have an opinion. But opinions are only relevant in discussing what is not already known to be fact. "The Dodgers did not hit many home runs this year" is not an opinion - they finished 15th in the NL. "The Dodgers had a bad year offensively" is an opinion, but it can be substantiated by the fact that they had a team OPS+ of 93, where 100 is average. "The Dodgers need to give up their best hitters for more pitching" is an opinion, and a very stupid one at that.

But I digress. Here's my old roommate on the subject:

If you read what Schreiber says about ESPN's coverage, it makes them look like a "worldwide leader" in sports, but little else. They lead the fray into a world of unsubstantiated reports, biased reporting by former athletes interviewing former teammates and players who played the same position (see: Irvin, Michael and Johnson, Keyshawn), and unseasoned reporters thrust into a position where they have to awkwardly negotiate their position as a former athlete and their current position as a journalist, which goes beyond ESPN (see: Barber, Tiki).

Apparently ESPN believes it needs not only frequent celebrity guests, but in fact needs celebrity hosts, not uncommon in sports. But ESPN was correct in stating their situation is not unique, but in fact the nature of 24 hour news, and that is the case for their shoddy news coverage, but reporters on Fox News and CNN are reporters, not ex-politicians. The creation of a larger opinion section for the 24 hour news networks seems to be the trend, because that's easier to use as filler.

But here's the problem - there are more useful opinions out there. Dodger Thoughts is a trillion times more useful than Bill Plaschke. Heck, I can even write a Bill Plaschke column (comment 226). Bloggers can also do research, cite facts and stats, and they are fact-checked by readers whom they are not too arrogant to ignore.

The mainstream media has advantages, just not what one would think. The old claim is it's professional, so it can screen writers for quality - a reasonably intelligent reader can screen for quality. More relevantly, the professional status means that reporters are paid to have time to devote to gathering facts, information and interviews. Reporters can ask experts for data and sources of data. Most significantly, reporters are most capable of unearthing new information credibly.

Bloggers pretty much have to cite reporters - often they just link to them and quote, if anything, only the most relevant parts - because not only do they have to satisfy the reporter that they're not plagarizing, but they have to satisfy their audience that they're not making stuff up. Bloggers have to have substatiated opinions - people are more skeptical of what other people have to say. Further, bloggers can use any hard data they see. Therefore, the most efficent division of labor would be for the mainstream media to do all the reporting and fact gathering and then for the bloggers to comment and analyze.

There are vast economic reasons you don't see this, though. If bloggers could summarize news stories just by citing newspapers and linking to them, how would newspapers make money? The best the newspapers would hope for would be increased readership, and they may limit how much of the article could actually be quoted on a blog. It would be a risky move, but a solidly journalistic news organization could prove to be the most linked to paper, and those who just want the whole story would go to that paper. As it is, this is the strength of the news business, and division of labor suggests you are better off specializing in your strength, even if you are better at commentary than bloggers (which these reporters are not).