Do I understand what a blog entails?

I received a call from Christine Brennan about my last post and needless to say, she disagreed with some of the things I wrote.

I'm working on a follow-up, but I thought I'd at least acknowledge the fact that she thinks I may have misrepresented her in a few places. There was some exaggeration, but I think that was in the interest of humor.

Hopefully I'll have a bit more to add here within the week and I'll try to get across what I think her objections were.

Do you understand what your job entails?

Christine Brennan of USA Today made an appearance at my sports journalism class the other day.

Did you know she gave Tony Kornheiser the ideas for many of his columns back when he actually still wrote for The Washington Post and she's great friends with all the important TV people? Did you know that MLB Commissioner Bud Selig once called her up out of the blue and she gave him a piece of her mind because she's one tough hombre, but he still really liked her book even though she was tough on him? Did you know that she is the reason every exciting or interesting sports story you've ever read got published?

So she's got a bit of an ego. Oh well. So smugness has taken up permanent residence on her face in the form of a cocky half smile and every single one of her sentences involves a namedrop of some sort. C'est la vie. It's her life to live.

If she's doing her job well, I suppose complete self-satisfaction is tolerable.

But she isn't doing her job. And she admitted it to our class.

Today's columnists and news bloggers have a responsibility to interact with their audience. It's part of Internet journalism. That doesn't mean you have to respond to each idiotic response, but you owe it to your readers to take their thoughts into consideration. It's a dialogue of sorts and what better way to get a sense of what the general public is thinking than by reading reactions to your opinion? That should really give you more material to work with and a better understanding of what would make your articles more relevant.

I was shocked when Christine Brennan told us that she doesn't read the comments posted on her column. That's a fundamental misunderstanding of the medium she works in.

I'm not completely talking out of my ass here. I've never been a prominent columnist in a national newspaper, but I know how this commenting business works. I spent two years sifting through comments sent into our high school online paper. Some of those comments were on articles I'd written, so I'd argue that I've been in a similar position to her own before.

Yes, there are a lot of stupid people out there on the Internet, but when you're posting somewhere millions of people have the potential to read what you've written, you have to expect some of those stupid people to say obnoxious things about your piece. Oh well. Deal with it. It comes with the job.

And who knows? Someone out there might actually have something intelligent to say or might have some information you can use to help further your investigation into the subject.

Brennan wasn't the first person I'd heard recently express an unwillingness to engage with the readership. I asked one of The Washington Post bloggers (hint: not Dan Steinberg) what he thought of the comments he received. He had much the same response, albeit he was far less obnoxious about it and didn't seem as contemptuous.

Still, it makes me wonder what percentage of journalists out there get it. Part of journalism must surely be having a thick skin and part of new media journalism must surely be finding a way to have a manageable conversation with readers.

My high school newspaper adviser John Mathwin understood this and he was by no means a man of cyberspace. To him, acknowledging the people sitting at the other end of the Internet tubes was just common sense. But if my incredibly tiny sample size is any indication, apparently it's something that needs to be taught.

A lot of media organizations seem like they're so close to getting it right. There are a lot of interactive features out there. They just need to hire the right people to carry them out.

Coppin State vs. Hampton: live blog

I've decided to live-blog the last four seconds of the Coppin State-Hampton game based entirely off what I'm seeing on ESPN.com's score updates.

Update 1:
Coppin State hits a free throw to go up one with another shot on the way! KC is excited! (Coppin State 75, Hampton 74)

Update 2:
Coppin State misses the second free throw! KC is worried! (Coppin State 75, Hampton 74)

Update 3:
Something happens! (Coppin State 75, Hampton 74)

Update 4:
Coppin State wins! (Coppin State 75, Hampton 74)