In an otherwise solid interview with Fanhouse, Jason Whitlock – a man seemingly with no fear; he’s gone after Lupica, Scoop, Stephen A. Smith, Jay Mariotti, and Playboy – made the assertion that a sports blog will eventually fill the void of “holding [other spots] blogs accountable.” (This sort of already existed at some point, and we seem to recall others, but we can’t find them.) Apparently, this is necessary because sports blogs are chummy with one another – perhaps to a fault.

Do you have any thoughts on why blogs are less critical of other blogs?
Blogs are suffering from the same problem as the MSM. We think if we ignore our shortcomings, no one will notice them. Some smart blogger will fill the void and begin the process of holding blogs accountable. There’s an audience for that. There is a good-old-boys network among bloggers that will eventually get shaken up. Lips will get removed from asses at some point. This is America. There’s always someone available to call bulls—.

He’s right … and wrong.

Stop Mike Lupica did a great job putting together this list of “blog feuds.” We’re certain more blogs than one dislike us. How do we know this? Because in the program that some blogs use, wordpress, there is this neat little thing called the “Dashboard” where you can see anyone who is linking to you. Guess what, Mr. Whitlock – it’s not the love fest you envision. Here are just two instances of bloggers taking us to task, and there are certainly many more:

The Big Lead and Credibility – regarding Kelvin Sampson
Blogs we want to blow up – ‘[TBL] is an insult to people who think’

Now the question becomes: TBL, you seem to have “impact” – Mike Tirico is name-checking you on the radio, Scott Van Pelt and Josh Elliott have mentioned you on Sportscenter, you were profiled by SI.com, and national radio hosts like Colin Cowherd admit to reading you blah, blah – how come you’re not more critical of other blogs when they screw up? We get asked this on occasion, and truthfully, in this new medium, we really aren’t sure who is and isn’t ‘fair game.’ At the risk of leaping into a philosophical debate …

Recently, MJD at Yahoo wrote something rather inappropriate during the NFL draft. There was a minor fracas at Yahoo about how to handle it, and the post eventually came down. We grappled with how to cover it. If someone at ESPN or SI had written this, would most of the blogosphere been all over it? Probably. But does MJD get a free ride because he links to bloggers from the Yahoo platform? Is this something we should have written about, considering Yahoo is part of the dreaded mainstream media?

When Deadspin’s Will Leitch was called out by NPR, there was hardly a peep in the blog world. Again, the same argument arose: If NPR had called out a sportswriter on the issue of race, would blogs have been up in arms about it? Probably. So why didn’t blogs write about it?

On both counts, we struggled with the “fair game” line. If you collect a salary from writing a blog, do you “count” as mainstream? What if you’ve written a book? Or sold a screenplay? Or appeared on TV shows? The rapid rise of sports blogs in the last few years has left all of this open to interpretation. We must admit that the AJ-Stuart Scott cell phone post was one of the most brazen (and funny) things we’ve ever read on a blog, but several people complained that it was out of bounds and akin to sifting through someone’s garbage. (Cough, disagree, cough) Sports blogs probably surpassed the Fight Club underground level last year, but where the heck they are right now remains too fluid to get into.

In two years? Well, that’s another post for another day. But as newspaper circulation declines and advertisers and readers rush to the internet – seemingly on a monthly basis – some blogs will become mainstream even if they don’t want to.