Lisa Olson lists all the wrong reasons for FanHouse's end

This sportsjournalism.org piece from Dave Kindred, which relays the thoughts of FanHouse's Lisa Olson on the forthcoming demise of that institution, has been gnawing at me for a few weeks; this is a delayed reaction to it, but I think it's still worth writing about. Kindred's article begins in promising fashion, eviscerating Bleacher Report for the lack of interest they've historically shown towards quality control, and I don't really disagree with the general theory that it would be nice to see quality material rewarded with more pageviews. However, it goes on to arbitrarily draw the line to blast all bloggers, and uses Olsen's words to do so:

She thought of FanHouse that way, a gathering of veterans on a journalistic adventure. "We were all experienced and qualified, not some 25-year-old bloggers," she said. "The motto was, ‘Go, go, go. Grow, grow, grow.' And we did. Then, this. It's devastating."

If you believe Olson, it was the mainstream journalists who made the bold move to jump to FanHouse who were involved in making that site something new and exciting before it was tragically sold by AOL. I don't buy that, though. Yes, FanHouse was making a lot of progress and had some great people, but I think that was as much in spite of the "big names" they recruited as because of them.

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Super Bowl prediction and articles

After weeks of waiting, it's finally time for the Super Bowl. As I wrote earlier, I love this matchup; the spread's 2.5, and there's a good argument that it should be a pick-em. It's one of the closest Super Bowl games I've seen in some time, and that's what I emphasized in my predictions; as usual, I have a complete breakdown of the game over at The Good Point with Mark Milner, and I also have a shorter pick posted over at Robert Carnell's blog. For those just looking for a score, I'm going to go with Pittsburgh 24, Green Bay 21. I also have a rundown of the CFL figures involved in the game over at 55-Yard Line. Finally, let's carry on from the conference championship games with a theme song for each team!

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