Raul Ibanez debacle: blame the Philly Inquirer, not blogger Jerod Morris

If you're not caught up on the latest episode of MEDIA WARS, here's the synopsis: Jerod Morris of Midwest Sports Fans wrote a blog post saying he didn't think Raul Ibanez was using steroids, but that it was reasonable if some people speculated about it. John Gonzalez then wrote a column in the Philadelphia Inquirer blasting Jerod for his post. Now it's blown up into a big media sh*t-storm which you can watch on ESPN's 'Outside the Lines' below.

Kudos to Jerod for coming off as the most intelligent and forward-thinking one of the bunch on OTL. I thought it was laughable that John Gonzalez and Ken Rosenthal tried to argue that bloggers should have standards (like the "standards" mainstream media have?). Jerod is actually a great blogger and from reading his work regularly, I believe he does have high standards for what he publishes. However, any bozo with a computer can also publish a blog post. Today's media landscape includes great bloggers, bozo bloggers, great mainstream journalists, and bozo mainstream journalists. Each outlet has to be responsible for its own standards and reputation. And readers have to be aware that bozo foolishness can appear in any media source and judge the reputation of each independently.

In this case, it sounds to me like a lot of media outlets are jumping on the controversy bandwagon while trying to hide behind Jerod as the bad guy who started the whole thing. If Gonzalez thought Jerod's blog post was so irresponsible, then wouldn't that be Gonzalez's bad for boosting its prominence using his newspaper column that has supposed "standards"?