Bloggers as Sources (Schilling Speaks)

There has a been a view recent examples of traditional news sources using citing blogs has news sources. This article from the New York Times is a great read on the subject.

This idea is really playing-out these days in the Boston sports world. Outspoken Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling has taken to the blogging world recently with his new site 38pitches.com. Curt has been banging out content at a herculean pace that puts columnists to shame. Even better, he's raising the ire of these same people and causing some serious, albeit sarcastic, worry among the print set.

Basically what Schilling is doing is taking out the traditional middleman and communicating right to the public. It presents an interesting dilemma to the regular newspaper columnists and beat reporters and raises the question of what could happen if all athletes starting taking to the Internet to express their opinions? It could seriously put their profession in danger.

Of course, this would require all players finding the time to actually blog. Something that will probably never happen. But, Schilling is a start. It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the course of the season. While I doubt he will be able to be prolific once the regular season starts, I'm sure there will be a handful of times during the summer where he will cause some controversy. Not only will the media's reaction/response be something to look forward to, but I'll also be curious as to how the Red Sox PR team chooses to handle things.