Mark Cuban Blogs... A Win for the Commons

Who's blogging? I'd never heard of him before the past couple of days because while I really love going to see the giants or the warriors, I don't follow TV sports. But DanG and JeffJ both pointed to him in the past two days, and so I read yesterday, and just now again. Dan even sent him 5 questions that he answered, for blogposting.

The guy is hilarious, owns the Dallas Mavericks, and wants to deal directly with readers because he feels misquoted by the traditional media, who are btw, a bit non-plussed by this maneuver. Anyway, he got a 10k fine for supposedly talking to the media about something (I'm not really up on nba rules so I don't really get why). He feels he was misquoted, and so has this to say about answering questions of media reporters:

It was then I told them that rather than providing any commentary or quotes to them on this matter, or on any upcoming matters, I would be posting whatever I had to say on my blog. They were not happy.

"How are we going to ask you follow up questions?" I explained that he could email me directly or from the site, but that I would most likely post his question and my response. "Is the league sending a message that they didn't want you talking to reporters?" Ding ding ding. Give him a lollipop.

I went on to explain that this was the best way for all of us. They could get all the quotes and information they needed. "Will this be just you writing it, or will you dictate it to someone else?"

The satisfaction of knowing that each will have to explain to their editors what a blog is — and argue for who knows how long about whether or not BlogMaverick.com is an attributable source — crept over me and that jaunt on the gauntlet flew by.

Time for the game: GO MAVS!

I realize there is a potenial for abuse for this sort of thing. Public figures who need to be directly asked a question can avoid it by simply blogging all their responses, turning off comments and not reading other blogger's responses. But I can also see that this signals another turn in the direct connection and conversation between the public and public figures, cutting out the media middle man. While good media coverage will lend perspective, there is something to be said for letting people make up their own minds.

Posted by Mary Hodder at March 18, 2004 11:17 AM | TrackBack