Bud Selig drives opinion, MLB.com continues to eclipse print media--Shaikin

Shaikin, LA Times: 10/4: "For all the good work that mlb.com does, the website cannot shake that perception, that

• Bud Selig and his teams call the shots.

• When Lyle Spencer, who covers the Angels for mlb.com, broke the story of the Scott Kazmir trade, the Tampa Bay Rays saw the story

• and incorrectly assumed the Angels had tipped Spencer.

The Rays were enraged because they had not yet told Kazmir, and all of a sudden

• mlb.com reported the trade had "fallen through," when it had not.

Why should you care?... The new media world is one of Web hits,

• driven more by opinion and breaking news

• than by game recaps and injury updates.

The national websites leave game coverage to the ubiquitous Associated Press,

• relying on as few as two reporters apiece to generate hits with trade rumors, insider gossip

• and anything related to the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox.

Perhaps newspapers can save a few more bucks by outsourcing daily coverage to mlb.com, which produces 100 stories every day, and shifting resources to independent commentary and analysis.

• "We're open for business," said Dinn Mann, executive vice president of mlb.com.

• "We do recognize the need exists in some cases.""...

""Baseball is Caught in Web," by Bill Shaikin, LA Times, via Poynter.org/Romenesko

• 4/21/08, NY Times, MLB's Bob DuPuy wants no interference from newspapers and magazines on the internet. article, "Tension over sports blogging," by Tim Arango

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