The Doggy Bag: Tabloid MMA

Generally I am impressed by the responses you give readers in the doggy bag. You manage to effectively cut through allegations of favoritism, insults, and outrage with insightful commentary. Needless to say I was surprised when I read your responses on the last page of this week’s bag. I understand the number of emails you get must be astronomical, but I don’t read the bag because I want to read all the trash you get every week.

I appreciate reading the doggy bag because in the past you've selected the few interesting emails out of many and responded thoughtfully. The poor excuses for humor posted this week were... disappointing. If you feel like you have to respond to emails which present themselves as personal attacks then do so, but please leave them out of the doggy bag. You clearly didn’t believe the emails in question warranted a response, seeing as you didn’t answer them, and I trust you to make those decisions so that I won't waste my time reading them. Then, against your better judgment you published the emails anyway. Probably under the false impression that your insulting replies would pass as humor.

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You've spent a lot of time lately on the topic of MMA going mainstream, and how excited you are about it. I've been a consistent reader of your site because I generally believe most of the articles are well written, interesting, and fair. It is unfortunate that your exuberance for a mainstream audience hasn't been seen in the actions you take with regards to running your site. What amuses the 15 year old reader with 4,300 posts on your forum won’t satisfy the mainstream reader looking for a legitimate source of MMA news.

As coverage of the UFC and MMA in general starts to pick up, the competition for readers will become greater. If the last two emails you published in the doggy bag are any indication, my fear is that I, along with many others will no longer be turning to Sherdog.com for the latest MMA news in the future.
-- Chris Blanchard

Jason Probst, columnist: Thanks for taking the time to write in. You make some salient points, and as a long time doggybagger (both here and at maxboxing) it can get a little out of hand at times. As "journalists" we are supposed to take the high road, but often in the frenzied world of electronic communication, you can run out of patience and let it get the better of you.

Take a peek from the flip side of our world where we're operating. Your typical Sherdogger is working some other full-time job, knocking out stories, often with short/intense deadlines, etc. This is the work we've opted to do, and nobody owes us an apology. You're writing, clicking back and forth in the Fight Finder or wherever, checking your facts, and yet you still get one little thing off or wrong. Or something's shadily debatable. You then get 15 emails from people, many of them telling you what a nitwit you are, etc., despite the fact that last week, you of course remembered that UFC was "The Brawl in Buffalo" instead of how you mistakenly referenced it. You get a little testy and take it down to that level. Or not. It should all be waged in good fun and I personally have had some wonderfully spirited exchanges with folks -- others far less highfalutin that will probably haunt me on my deathbed.

But at the end of the day, the feedback cycle reflects the tone of the work being done, yet at the same time takes advantages of the immediacy of our medium. There has to be some give and take and, ultimately, readers like yourself will determine the marketplace and subsequent success of Sherdog and other sites. Points respectfully taken.

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