There’s nothing like a good media spat, and this one between Jason Whitlock of the Kansas City Star and Playboy Magazine sounds like a blast. An unscrupulous editor, feeling the need to stir up passions and piss people off enough to pick up a magazine, decided that ethics mattered less than profits. (Wealthy editor reading this: That’s how the business works!)

Some might say the same about blogs. “You only put up photos of celebrities because that generates clicks.” We hear this refrain often, and we always have the same reaction: laughter. Though we don’t have a mission statement, our goal is clear: to cover the sports media. (Tangent coming, we apologize in advance.)

Do we do as good of a job as Fire Joe Morgan? No. Are we in the same solar system as Matt Drudge? No, not even if Newsweek or Slate think some sports blogs are in the embryonic stages of such suchery. As Sports Illustrated detailed, we have attempted to chronicle the ever-evolving state of sports journalism in the last few years, and we couldn’t have chosen a better time: the landscape is changing, often on a weekly basis. Out with the old, in with … actually, those buyouts aren’t being replaced.

The media’s usually worth a post or two a day; sometimes, there’s nothing. We’re certainly not going to force something that isn’t there, so when not discussing the media, we talk about topics we enjoy – sports, culture, women, movies, fantasy sports, politics, books, sharks, alligators and obscure stuff that happens other continents.

Which is why we took some umbrage with Whitlock’s Fox column where he called bloggers “the online paparazzi.” (Yes, we know he didn’t mean all bloggers are paparazzi.) Really? You mean bloggers are waiting in parking lots for athletes and taking photos and selling them for incredible profits? That must mean bloggers are ridiculously wealthy and enjoying lavish lifestyles. Guess we didn’t get the memo.

Athletes out partying? Nothing new. Athletes out partying, surrounded by camera-wielding fans who can’t wait to get home and post their night of fun on Myspace or Facebook, whereupon the photos zip around the net with the speed of 1982 Ricky Henderson? That’s the era we’re in. Thing is, most newspaper columnists are not part of that generation, so they are not getting the photos emailed to them. But here’s the question – let’s say an Arizona columnist had the photo emailed to him first. Would he have penned the “Matt Leinart needs to grow up” column? If the answer is no, then why did write it once the column went wide?

We’d now like to bring up the New York Times. All week, there was plenty of smut flying around, courtesy of the Daily News and Post: Roger Clemens bedded a bunch of women while married. Guess what the Times reaction was, despite major bandwidth being wasted on this story? Nothing. The Times elected to completely pass on the story. Smart move. It decided that none of that was worth a story, so the paper ignored it. And the story’s kind of dying, isn’t it? The Matt Leinart photos were totally NOT a story. The guy’s in the offseason, partying with some chicks at his house. So now you can’t beer bong in your backyard in the offseason? Newspapers can make their own decisions on what is and isn’t a story – just because 47 blogs are writing about it, so f’ing what? Our head hurts now.

“Black KKK” headline on Playboy story wasn’t my idea (KC Star via Romenesko)