Trouble in Turn2

If you have never read The Spotter, you are missing out on John Newsom’s great insight and wicked wit. As a news reporter, John also has a unique perspective on blogging, journalism and where the media is headed. And of course, he’s funny.

How long have you blogged?
Let’s see … I started blogging in Feb. 2005, shortly after I became assistant sports editor at the News & Record. It’s 2008 now, so that’s, what, three years?

Why do you blog? Or what made you start blogging?
Self-preservation, mostly. At the time, the N&R was hopping on the blog train, and I didn’t want to miss it, and the Sports editor wanted me to do one. I knew a bit about racin’, and Greensboro is in NASCAR’s best (or second-best, depending on how you count it) TV market. Three years ago there weren’t many NASCAR blogs. The Diecast Dude and the Scottish Racer were about the only two out there, and I figured I had some great untapped niche. But then thatsracin.com unleased its pack of blogs about a week before The Spotter went live, so there went that plan.

I probably could have given it up when I moved back to the newsroom (I’m now the online news reporter) in January because I was really burned out on blogging toward the end of last year. But it was a new year and a new start, and I couldn’t give up completely on making fun of Fat Tony and various hapless drivers. Might as well do it on company time.

How long have you been a NASCAR fan?
I was vaguely aware of racing when I was a kid. I grew up in Richmond, and I remember one time I went to the old Richmond Fairgrounds with my friend Dan Peck and his dad. (There used to be a Peck Iron and Metals sign on I-95 coming into Richmond, on the south side of town. That was Dan’s dad’s family business.) I pretty much forgot about from racin’ when I lived in NYC and Texas, but I really got into it when I moved to N.C. in 1995. So I’d say I’ve really been a fan for about a decade or so. In other words, I’m a complete NASCAR Noob.

You work for a newspaper and have a blog. What is your take on blogging compared to traditional journalism?
The Buzz Bissinger-Will Leitch fracas has consumed a lot of virtual ink over the last week. And because I’m a fair-minded journalist with a foot in both worlds, I see where they’re both coming from. (I’m going to confine what follows to Sports, though the same pretty much goes for News blogs vs. news reporters.)

Fact of the matter is, print and blogs are both journalism. Blogs and traditional sports writing are a lot more alike than people seem to think. They both deal in facts and opinion. They both use the written word. The blog guys love to trash the MSM and the dead tree media or the buggy whip makers or whatever you want to call newspapers today. But print journalists are the ones out there doing much of the original reporting. They’re the ones talking to the coaches and the players and the agents and doing a lot of the heavy lifting on the reporting end. They also still have big platforms. The daily papers aren’t as powerful as they once were, but they still have a lot of readers and reach and more than a fair bit of influence. A lot of people care what Ed Hardin writes, for instance, and the N&R gets praise or grief (grief, mostly) for which stories make the front of the section and who gets their name in the paper.

But the newspaper guys unfairly slam blogs as some sort of bastard love child of gossip and slander. Blogs are more than just a looser, more fun form of writing. They’re also a new publishing platform, cheap and easy for anyone who has a computer and a way to put words on the virtual page. Blogs are essentially columns without a set length or regular publication date. You have to remember that newspaper columnists have plum jobs. They’ve paid their dues from preps to college to pros. Most columnists have a lot of clips in the bag before they get their column, and you have to pry it out of their cold dead hands. Bloggers haven’t paid their dues in that same way, and that bothers a lot of journalists.

There are a lot of funny and interesting bloggers out there, and my Google reader is full of them. But there are a lot of awful ones, too. Just like newspaper columnists.

While I’m on the topic, Buzz Bissinger is a wonderful journalist. “Friday Night Lights” is a tremendous book. But he acted liked a complete horse’s ass on Bob Costas’ show. He acted like every cliche of Old Media. If you’re going to rip someone — and there’s plenty about Deadspin and other blogs you can hate on — at least do some research first.

What do you enjoy about your blog and the NASCAR blogging community?
Most of what I write now involves tragedy — I write a lot of briefs about people who are shot or stabbed or robbed — and the word “police” is in just about every story I produce. The blog lets me write about something different and in a different format.

Another difference between blogs and newspapers has to deal with style and tone. Newspapers use a fairly formal format — everything has to be sourced, there are certain style conventions, news stories take a hard lead and features take a soft lead, etc. etc. In the blog, I can write pretty much whatever the hell I want. I also can use the word “hell” without having the editors meet it to death over the course of an afternoon. Hell. Hell. Hell. Man, that feels good.

As for the blogging community, I’ve gotten to e-know some folks. I actually met one — Bram Hume of Backstretch Motorsports is also from Greensboro. He’s a big, funny guy who knows a ton about racing.

Is there anything you don’t enjoy about blogging, or the NASCAR online community?
All they ever write about is NASCAR, NASCAR, NASCAR. Just for once write about something else, mmkay?

Humor is a big part of your blog. Is it hard to convey humor through writing?

You say I’m funny. You mean funny like I’m a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh, I’m here to amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?

“From the Marbles” is pretty funny. Black Flagged Online (aka The Onion of NASCAR bloggage) is very fresh and smart. Full disclosure: I went to William and Mary with Jay Busbee, one of the “From the Marbles” bloggers. J.D. Gibbs is another W&M guy. We rule NASCAR. Take that, UVa.

How much time per day do you spend blogging?
Maybe two or three hours per week. I used to do a lot more when I was back in Sports and was working with Dustin Long, our racing writer and blogger. But I don’t follow racing as closely, so I’m not as up on the day-to-day as I was. As I mentioned earlier, I was really burned out on blogging at the end of last season. I went with the three-times-a-week Five Laps format this year just to keep the writing load manageable. I don’t want to hate what I do.

Do you have a favorite driver?
Juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuunior!!!!!

My least favorite should be pretty obvious. *cough* Shrub *cough*. I also admire these drivers for different reasons: Denny Hamlin (also from Richmond), Kevin Harvick (who’s driving the repainted No. 3), Tony Stewart (who can drive anything) and Juan Pablo Montoya (because black cars look completely cool, and because he, too can drive anything on four wheels. If Tony Stewart were Colombian, he’d be Montoya.)

Which races do you attend during the season?
None. I went to the spring race at Richmond a few years back and had a blast, and I covered the one and only Busch race at Martinsville a couple of years ago before it was NAFTA’d north to Canada. (That’s the first thing from Martinsville that hasn’t been boxed up and shipped south.) But I’m the cheapest bastard alive, and I’m not much on crowds. Now that Digger’s at the track, there’s no reason to leave the couch.

Is there one thing that was key to your blog’s success?
My blog’s a success? Where did you hear that? The fact that you peddle such untrue rumors must mean you’re a blogger.

Name something cool that has come as a result of your blog.
A couple of years ago my wife got me a JINX T-shirt that says “Nobody reads my blog.” That made me laugh. Then I cried into my new shirt because it was true. Did you know the salt in tears can really help break in a new T-shirt?

Do you have any strange or funny stories about your blog (funny or outrageous comments or emails from people, etc.)?
In one of the first comments on my first-ever post, a guy ripped me for driving a Volvo and for never having been to a race. I got to school him pretty good.

But for the most part, I’ve been pretty surprised at how smart and funny my commenters have been. Take a peek at the comments at the thatsracin.com blogs, and you’ll be convinced that the English language had gone there to die. At the Letters to the Editor blog at the N&R, spelling, grammar and logical thought all are curled together in a corner, whimpering. I never thought The Spotter would be more civil than anything our Op-Ed folks did, but it is.

What is something your readers wouldn’t otherwise know about you or your blog?
I play a level 70 dwarf hunter on World of Warcraft. Alliance FTW.