How sports are like flight plans and other confusing analogies

Very sneaky, Uncle Rick. Asking us whether the Web will replace sports journalists, when we're still struggling to define "the Web" and "journalists" (and maybe even "sports").

Let's say the Web is compared to a non-stop flight between the fans (in New York) and their favorite star athlete/team (in Lawrence, Kan.) with sports journalism just being that inconvenient stopover in Connecticut.

Well, then, Barry Bonds is innocent (according to Barry Bonds).

And there was never anything rotten in Durham since in 1,295 press releases, the first ones to address the lacrosse controversy were on April 11, 2007, when the players were cleared of all charges (according to the official Duke Athletics website). Of course, anyone just following the situation on the Duke website might be a little bit confused by these sudden victorious posts, as nothing about the situation was mentioned earlier.

But at least, little Tom can talk directly with Ben Gordon on his MySpace, or if that's not enough, he can follow BG on his personal website.

And if, by chance and not wishing anything bad to come to him, Gordon does screw up, I am sure that he will use both of these outlets to accurately report all sides of the story.

Here come the journalists (aka the stopover in Connecticut where there's probably five inches of snow and one hour turns into four…).

Are journalists really as inconvenient as all that? In an age where all relevant statistical information on a team can readily be found on their site, the commentary of the players can be found on their sites and Digger Phelps is hailed for his opinion, why does sports journalism still exist?

Because a huge part of sport is opinion. And passion. And rumors. And bashing Missouri. What does all that sound like? I'll give you a hint: it starts with a "b" and rhymes with "Phog."

Someone once made a case that bloggers are journalists, too. And bloggers are doing a pretty good job of sharing commentary and opinion and passion and rumors and bashing MU. They even set up interviews and exchange opinions with other bloggers as was the case with Rock Chalk Talk and Bring on the Cats prior to the KU-KState matchup at Allen West. Sometimes this "amateur" commentary is even more enlightened than that of paid professionals *cough*ESPN*cough*.

Sports journalism isn't going away. It's just changing like all other aspects of media. And just like sports has been on the cutting edge of new media in the past, it still is today.

Of course, if I want to know what time the game is on Saturday, I'll go to kuathletics.com. But if I want to know if anyone else thinks the ‘Hawks looked a little sluggish against Colorado, I'll read Mark Dent or any one of the seven blogs on kusports.com or any one of the 774,000 on Google.

So maybe the new sport journalism isn't like that inconvenient stopover in Connecticut, maybe it's more like getting on the plane and finding out that everyone else is also a fan of your favorite team.

P.S. Google search "MU Tigers blogs" - there are only 214,000.