I have no idea whether the audience of this blog has any special feeling for blogs, or whether audience members get some, most or all of their information from Internet sources but I do know this -- if you're reading this, you do read some blogs and at least commit some of your valuable time to being informed or entertained via this medium.

All that is to introduce was has been quite a week in the blogosphere brought on by what I am sure was planned as a somewhat serious look at blogs -- sports blogs, in particular -- on the Bob Costas TV show, Costas Now.  The panelists were Cleveland wide receiver Braylon Edwards representing the athlete's point of view, the editor of  Deadspin (probably the most popular sports blog in America) Will Leitch and Buzz Bissinger, a former newspaper reporter who has won the Pulitzer Prize and is the author of the high school football classic Friday Night Lights as well as other books.

If you haven't heard by now, Bissinger expressed the point of view that blogs are often vulgar, mean, pointless and were essentially an assault on civilization as we know it.  Leitch tried to articulate why some blogs do what they do.  Edwards told it from the player's side and spoke to issues of privacy, such as the now famous Matt Leinart photos that we ran links to even at this blog -- which is on the G to GP side of the blog spectrum.

In pressing his argument, Bissinger went on a rant that was as a profane as some of the blogs he criticized.  Leitch tried to weather the firestorm.  I know both Bissinger and Leitch a little.  Bissinger and I were on the same newspaper staff when he won his Pulitzer.  We weren't buds but I got to attend a pretty good party as a result of he and other colleagues winning the award.  I heard Leitch speak at a blogging conference late last year and spent a few minutes chatting one-on-one.

The gist of what Bissinger said about blogging has all been said before.  And mostly, he was directing his tirade against those blogs done by folks most of us would think of as non-traditional journalists and that concentrate on the prurient.  What I found to be an interesting twist is that Bissinger, as the Friday Night Lights author, I believe has been someone whom many in the blog camp -- people in their 20s and 30s -- have considered something of an icon because his writing resonated with them.

This post is an attempt to introduce you to the debate in reverse chronological order of three media events this week.  I think this is something that blogs can do well, that is aggregate information for an audience so it can be informed and come to its own conclusion.

The most current clip is Bissinger on the Dan Le Batard radio show.  Here Bissinger apologizes for his Costas show blow-up but continues to make his point about the downside of blogs as they are practiced by some bloggers.

The next clip is a link to Deadspin which has an embedded video of the Best Damn Sports Show Period.  This is Leitch and panelists, including John Calipari, from that show -- which is a bit irreverent itself -- discussing blogs in as serious a conversation as you'll hear on BDSSP.

And finally, we have a Deadspin link to an embedded video of the Bob Costa show.  Be warned that the language on the clip is filled with expletives.   

This blog debate is not likely to go away in the near future just as blogs are likely to be with us as a way to impart information and entertain audiences that are increasingly reliant on digital modalities.