What would you say if we told you that on this humid Friday in the Northeast, we could present to you one of the most laughable screeds in the brief history of the ongoing blogger vs. media debate? Is that something you’d be interested in?

If you’re in need a laugh to loosen up before a liquid lunch or to snap you out of a food coma, allow us to introduce you to a man named David Murphy of the Philadelphia Daily News. And yes, this pertains to Raul Ibanez.

The point is that most bloggers are not trained in such analysis, and thus can not be expected to produce rational examinations of professional sports. Most bloggers have not spent years in college studying the craft of writing, reporting and analyzing. Most bloggers have not spent years embedded in the world of athletic competition, interacting with athletes and trainers and coaches, learning the people and their sports, learning their motivations, and their insecurities, and their foibles, and their strengths. Most bloggers view the athletic arena through two-dimensional objects — television, newspapers, the Internet, radio — and thus have a two-dimensional perspective, much like a person viewing a museum exhibit about another culture and attempting to relay his observations in the manner of a person who has spent years living in that culture. This, in a nutshell, is the blogosphere.

Wow. Who’s up for an email campaign to get Fire Joe Morgan out of mothballs for just one post?

Lowly bloggers aren’t interacting with the players and coaches, how can they possibly have perspective on such important matters such as balls, strikes and steroids? It’s like Mr. Murphy rolled up all the trite blogger cliches – no access, no experience, not professional, no boundaries – and attempted to pass it off as some highbrow take wrapped around the cockamamie ‘brother’ analogy.

[Aside: Which little brother are we, Mr. Murphy? Are you thinking we're like young Seth Green, who was so nettlesome to big bro Patrick Dempsey in Can't Buy Me Love? Do you prefer pesky Arnold to too-cool Willis? Is it a more cordial relationship like Ben Seaver and Mike Seaver had on Growing Pains? Please, let us know how this little brother-big brother alliance works.]

Why didn’t Mr. Murphy write a column after Rick Reilly’s jab at Adrian Beltre? “We’re throwing out Beltre since, while he denies ever using PEDs, he fell off the face of the planet once baseball put in stricter steroid suspensions in 2005. If he wasn’t cheating, I’m the Queen Mother.”

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Ignoring bloggers is a fine idea. In theory. Here are, briefly, three instances in which the media could have ignored posts that appeared on this site, but didn’t:

* The Derrick Rose photo. Non-story, right? Only a few bloggers were talking about it. But bloggers talking about it got fans talking about it, and with the draft still two weeks away, it was the only Bulls story over the last few days. So the media faced a decision: Do you ignore the story on your beat that fans are talking about? The Sun-Times did. The Tribune didn’t. By 3 pm yesterday, it was the No. 1 story on the Tribune’s website. By 6 pm, a Sportscenter producer emailed us in an attempt to track down the photo’s origin. Rose released a statement.

* The Jimmy Clausen photo. Non-story, right? He’s holding a beer at a party. Big deal! Well, except that he had been busted once, and he was the face of the team. The story spread to Notre Dame message boards, and was picked up by the Tribune. Clausen avoided punishment (he didn’t deserve one). Weis and Clausen were asked about this at media day last year.

* Jake Peavy’s mysterious hand substance. Someone sent us a screen grab, and it looked damning. The LA Times picked it up, and then it reached the AP wire, and coaches and players are asked about it.

Some media outlets ‘get’ bloggers – if you break news on your paper’s website, is it a terrible idea to then email the link to some blogs in an effort to get the word out? Or would you rather have the AP, ESPN, SI, etc chase your story, and when they swallow it, they swallow all your links and traffic as well? Then, when your boss wonders why your stories aren’t being clicked on … we digress.

There’s no correct answer to the relationship because it’s fluid and sometimes (often?), contentious. Why not sift through the thousands of blog options, make your educated, professional guess on what’s worth following and what isn’t, and go from there? Isn’t that how fans treat the mainstream media?

On Raul Ibanez, and media accountability (High Cheese, the Philly Daily News)