Hater-nation taints sports-nation

In an age where technology and particularly the Internet are at the forefront of information, the opportunity for fans of different sports teams to get closer to their teams through casual observations and debates with other fans has become a booming trend.\nBut because of this glut of data, the line between expert and fan has blurred.\nNowadays, it’s not enough to know whether or not teams win or lose. To be a good fan, one must see the game through a Web cast, cite statistics without hesitation, criticize officials and even spout out opinions and insults to others posting on these sites.\nA few months ago, the Indiana Daily Student gave Hoosier fans and haters a forum to be journalists, in a sense. This feature has allowed writers to get instant feedback on articles. (In my case, feedback usually qualifies as smart-ass call-outs on errors and omissions.) We aren’t the first to try this, but the volume of readers online is growing.\nBecause of this phenomenon, it’s now possible to get inside information the second it breaks. And because of the nature of die-hard fans, we have hit information overload and, consequently, the quality of reports has significantly decreased. People saturate themselves with as much information as they can and then hate on the experts for not playing their angles or missing out on something.\nThis has been a hot topic in the past couple months for sports journalism – the privileged reporters and columnists are fuming that any hack can write the same thing without the years of toiling through the bureaucracy of the news world. The more I think about the Internet blogs I read, the more upset I get.\nHalf the information at sports fans’ fingertips is either biased or fake. Trying to gauge the real from the made-up is tough. Recently a few of my favorite sports pundits, Rick Reilly and Michael Wilbon in particular, have chastised this Internet reporting. Both are staunchly outspoken against the opinions of less-credited bloggers. In response, bloggers attack the reporters back and make them out to be smug suburbanites who write and report hypocritically. \nTo me, it’s really sad that iconic sports journalists like Reilly and Wilbon have become Internet scapegoats because they actually made something more of themselves. I remember reading Sports Illustrated as a kid, opening up the back page first without any hesitation to catch Reilly. Then I grew to be a part of the hater-craze and came to despise Reilly for his average viewpoints and his sensitive outlook on sports.\nHaving written my own column for about a year now, I understand there has never been a more important time for the Tony Kornheisers of the world than now. People are shifting toward diluted information while ignoring well-written material. Sports journalism needs these experts to come out and assert their dominance in the field for the sake of fans like me who can’t take any more opinions from under-qualified Internet reporters. \nAs a society we are quickly losing the values sports teach us from our youth because of the influx in resources and lack of credible sources. For the experts, it has really become now or never.