The way our culture and media has evolved, most people expect every one to have an opinion or reaction about every thing.  I disagree.  To me, any one who knows their definitive position or claims to have all the answers immediately is usually full of shit.  Personally, I like to think about things, listen to others, get other opinions, do research, think more, see if any new evidence pops up, and then I’ll form an opinion, assuming the topic is something I’m even qualified or capable of knowing enough about to do so.

For instance, when the Mets recently named Terry Collins to be their new manager, I got calls and e-mails asking me to react.  React to what?  The guy hadn’t even officially been announced as manager, nor had he put on a uniform to manage a game, and I’m supposed to have a judgement on his tenor at the wheel.  That’s ridiculous.  So, I said, I’ll need to see how the GM builds the roster, which will take time, then see how Collins leads that team, which will take even more time.  Then and only then will I have enough evidence to judge his actions and the hiring as a whole.  This bothers people.  I don’t care.  This is who I am, and I bring that curiosity and humility to MetsBlog.com, and use it to create content that most likely resonates with people reading MetsBlog.com, since, as fellow fans, they probably have the same curiosity and questions that I do.

Matthew Cerrone:  OK, then.  I understand.

I’m writing this, and I realize you may not know who I am.
See, I’m used to writing on MetsBlog.com, where I write about the New York Mets baseball team, and where I have been writing for six years, and where I have developed a relationship with my 30,000 readers, who know me, and I know them… they know I overuse commas, like this; they know I occasionally misspell a word; they know I use vague sourcing, saying things like, ‘The buzz from baseball,’ or, ‘From what I can gather,’ instead of citing a specific person or source for information.
But, you don’t know me.  You may not know that I write fast, and loose, and that I often develop my thesis on the go… And, that’s the thing, writing for the web isn’t so much about form, structure and grammar and rules you learned in English 101.
Instead, it’s about credibility.
That’s it.
Believe me, or don’t believe me… it’s up to you.
Sure, form, structure and grammar can help build credibility, because a new reader is more likely to take a new writer more seriously if her writing appears professional.  But, if he is writing crazy things, or making unreasonable accusations, the look and structure of the post will not matter, the writer will still come across as crazy, unbelievable and not credible, and he will lose his reader.
The writer has to be believable and authentic… not perfect.
This drives traditional journalists nuts, and it must scare them to death.
Because, somewhere, right now, there is some teenager who doesn’t even know what AP Style means… but, his dad is friends with someone who works for the New York Yankees, who spills secrets and inside information about trades and free agents to sound important… and, where as 10 years ago that teenager could only use that information to impress his friends, that teenager now has a blog, and I can read it, you can read it, and so can thousands of other baseball fans.
Now, if that teenager is always accurate, if he’s always believable, if he’s authentic and I trust him, does it really matter if he knows the AP Style Guideline for how to abbreviate Conn., or when not to use a comma in a string of items and when to use a semicolon?
Sure, it’s easier to read, and it looks nice, and it can help him seem more professional, but I know plenty of professional journalists who have impeccable copy editors and I believe nothing they write, they were boring, and so I stopped reading what they had to say.
The anonymous teenager wrote thier instead of their, but he was correct saying the Yankees would sign free-agent Mark Teixeira, he was passionate, and he is believable, and, in the end, that’s all that matters… and so I keep going to his blog.

It’s 2011, they have kids who will enter the job market around 2030, and they’re not considering what the world might look like at that point.

Sadly, I think they’re still operating as though college, resumes and conventional expectations are still the only path forward.

The moment my wife and I picked a name for our baby, a month or two before she was born, I registered her a .com, a Twitter and Facebook account, and a Yahoo! and Gmail address. Frankly, to think these tools will even be relevant when she’s older is just as naive… but, at least I have them and someone else doesn’t.

Matthew Cerrone:  I used to, but not so much any more.  Frankly, though I slip up every now and then, I try real hard not to react emotionally toward mainstream reporters, even though I have very strong opinions about how they operate, the future of their profession and how they view me.  The reality is, the most important relationship in my online life is not how I fit in with reporters, it’s how I fit in with my audience, the people who read my words.  There just isn’t enough time in the day to worry about how mainstream reporters are connecting with their audience.  There is barely enough time for me to do what I need to do on MetsBlog.com.

Is a mainstream sports reporter obligated to be impartial?  Is she required to operate in a traditional way?  Is he allowed to opine on that subject, but not some other subject?  I don’t know, maybe.  The thing is, I’m too busy trying to create content for my own blog, which is a constant hustle and full-time grind.

Personally, I would rather spend my time thinking creatively about how sports media is going to be, as opposed to worrying about how it should be or how it once was.  Because, all of this will likely get taken care of in the market place.  I mean, if readers do not like Sullivan’s opinion, they don’t have to read him or follow him.  In time, that will be noticed some place, be it in his newspaper’s circulation, or as a net gain to someone else’s blog.  What’s more, there are less and rules to this game every day, which is not to say it is a Wild West, or that nobody has standards, it’s just nobody knows where this is all headed… and so, to me, it always seems foolish to tell people how they should or shouldn’t behave.

The point is, as a blogger, I try to worry about doing the best job I can; I worry about producing content and building my audience, while trying to stay focused on the task at hand.