A reason to link to ESPN is to make a point on a bad article OR sometimes to praise a good article to show readers what ESPN can become.

Having stated that, I will give your argument some more thought. The problem is that I have just as many problems with the AP as I do ESPN.

And let me take a moment aside to hype my employer, ESPN. Some of that traffic we get is probably laziness. But I’m telling you that guys like Marc Stein, Chris Sheridan, Chad Ford, John Hollinger, David Thorpe, Eric Neel, and the like generate a lot of inbound links because they very often are doing the best NBA work on the internet, and you can’t find it on other sites.

On my own blog, if there is a story that many different outlets have covered, I search around and read several different versions. If there’s one that’s more thorough, better written, etc., that’s the one I’m linking to every time. To pick one for its brand, or to stick it to the man etc. is to deny your readers the best stuff out there, which in the long run makes your blog a little less relevant.

Also, as I just wrote in the comments of the BallHype post about this same thing, aggregation is important. Pointing out the top stories of the day not only makes your readers aware of them, but also tells sites like google and ballhype what’s important.

I’m not one to rip them but I link to ESPN and other MSM outlets all the time. I will call ESPN out when they do something stupid like calling USC’s 2005 team the greatest of all time without having won that years championship. That whole campaign was absurd. Seeing that I live 3000 miles from the team I cover (USC) its tough to get to the campus for practices in order to get some information first hand.

It’s a little off-topic but relevant but, I understand about being considered lazy but it is a vicious circle. Most teams won’t give bloggers access to root out good stories in order to write up good posts, they don’t think we are credible enough to warrant the access or that our bias as fans may swing too far in one direction or another.

In order to really be original we need that access so we can formulate opinions based on what we see with our own eyes, instead we are left to sift through the different media outlets to extract the stories that we can add some insight or originality to while also making it interesting for our readers. The problem with that is that by the time a story hits ESPN, Fox or even the AP, its been filtered down to just the basics while probably leaving out some good pieces of information.

You can write game previews, team reviews or extrapolate stats for only so long. But in the end blogging is about commentary. Writers who can take previously released information and make it interesting with humor or more detailed facts and opinion are the ones who really set the standard in this medium. The MSM knows that and begrudgingly accepts it. The rest of us are out there doing it because we are passionate about our team and if we are a little over the top in our analysis then so be it. I don’t get paid for it so I’m not worried about others opinions. I do the best job I can and if I don’t do a good enough job readership will drop. It is as simple as that.

Seriously. Nice post. Ballhype is a great resource.

Personally, I don’t have any problem with the majority of what ESPN does and am probably one of the main culprits in pumping up the ESPN ballhype stats. My guess is that there vast more bloggers who feel similar to me.

In addition I’m assuming that everytime someone bitches about espn that the link to the site to point out exactly what they didn’t like.

yahoo, si or cbssportsline are my first destinations