Today on Deadspin, Barry Petchesky wrote a post about how Twitter is changing the way everyone, both press and fans alike, are now regarding athletes:

“There was an era when athletes were just people, when you could drink with them in a hotel bar, or send your kid to their front door to ask for an autograph. Then television came along and suddenly the were larger than life, and we as common fans had no hope of interacting with them other than cheering for or booing them from our seats.

Ironically it’s technology that’s bringing us full circle. Communications are a two-way street now; you could scream at your TV before, but the players inside couldn’t hear you. But they’re always checking their Twitter.”

The post was spawned by a press release that Petchesky received from a Canadian pizza chain. The restaurant, Boston Pizza,  started a social media campaign aimed at getting Shaq to visit one of their locations.

Petchesky examines what this kind of campaign says about the fan/athlete dynamic, then ends his post with an interesting question: “And, more pressing to a dwindling but vocal minority: with this access, where does that leave the press?”

His post immediately reminded me of the recent exchange between TrueHoop writer Henry Abbott and NBA rising star Kevin Durant. Last Friday, Abbott wrote a post about Durant’s surprisingly low +/- stats. Durant responded to the post via Twitter (response 1, 2 and 3), and then Abbott wrote another post in response to that. It was fascinating exchange and something that wouldn’t have happened in a pre-Twitter world (also fascinating: that Durant doesn’t know what plus/minus is).

But Petchesky’s question still stands: where does Twitter leave the sports press? The social media world is changing so quickly that it doesn’t seem there’s a definitive answer. What do you think?

• Jon Wertheim is a busy man. Between writing non-tennis features for Sports Illustrated, releasing a book, tweeting like a champion, and now jet-setting out to England for Wimbledon, it’s a wonder he still has time to file regularly at SI.com. But, he does, and the story he wrote last week on the place of grunting in tennis is a must-read.
• If you haven’t heard of FLYP magazine, your eyes haven’t been opened to the possibilities the internet allows creative thinkers. Utilizing a gorgeous layout and a fully interactive experience, FLYP could very well be the direction that magazines head in the next few years. Need an example? Here’s a cool story from their latest issue (did I mention it’s free?) about a guy who’s snagged over 4,000 baseballs from pro games.
• Here’s a gem from perhaps the hardest working NBA blogger in the business, ESPN’s Henry Abbott. I’ve fallen a little behind on TrueHoop this year, but posts like this one analyzing the Laker’s Final’s victory through the lens of cycling team time trials will bring me back.
• You’ve probably seen this Times Magazine piece on Rafael Nadal by now, but this is your reminder to give it a read if you haven’t done so yet. Yeah it seems prescient since Nadal withdrew from Wimbledon on Friday (the story hit the web early–before that announcement came), but I was more interested in the minute details Cynthia Gorney unearthed, like the fact that Nadal’s devastating top-spin forehand averages 3,200 rpms compared to Sampras and Agassi’s 1,900 range (and Federer’s 2,700). A dearth of reporting went into this piece.
• Here’s a nice father’s day piece Sally Jenkins wrote about her Dad, Dan Jenkins, and his leap into Twitter. Jenkins covers golf for Golf.com. He’s almost 80. And after following him all weekend as he updated from the dreary Bethpage Black, I can second everyone else’s claim that he twitters like he was born with a smartphone in hand.
• Sticking on the Twitter theme, MinnPost.com’s BrauBlog gives a behind-the-scenes look at how various journalists handled Kevin Love’s goodbye McHale tweet.
• To end, an excellent gallery of some superb shots by photographer Dylan Coulter. Happy Father’s Day all.

Stick with me as I point out the obvious here, but it bears repeating and further analysis: the format of sports journalism, like all journalism, is changing.

Traditional article form is giving way to the form of blog posts. Years of stripe-earning beat writing is no longer the only way to gain a readership. And the thoughtful aggregation of content can be as just useful and important as the thoughtful creation of it.

The art of reporting is no exception.

In the past, sports reporting was (to the eyes of a 25-year-old, keep in mind) fairly straight-forward. To cover a game, you went to the venue, observed the event, talked to the coaches and players and wrote your story. If you wanted a story that gauged fan reaction, you went to local bar/restaurant/stadium/drive-in/wherever and filled your notepad with quotes from the sport-loving public.

No more.

Why? Due to the internet, the sports public — and its conversation — has simultaneously spread out and become more connected. Fans across the world can now argue the merits of LeBron versus Kobe. This diffusion of fandom demands an expanded form of reporting.

That doesn’t mean traditional sideline and press conference reporting is obsolete, not by a long shot. It’s just no longer the only option.

Take, for example, a favorite blogger of mine Henry Abbott. He created TrueHoop, a site where he aggregates, ponders, and creates. He does not go to a lot of games, but he watches a lot of games, and he reads a lot more writing about those games. The best of it he shares with his readers in hopes to create a discussion and an informed sports public.

Scouring his daily links post today, I found something representative of this new style of reporting. Abbott had linked to and commented on a poem written by Brent Barry. The poem, found on Sports Illustrated’s “Point After” blog, is about the void in Sonicless Seattle. What Abbott focused on in his synopsis, though, wasn’t just the poem, but instead a heartfelt comment left in response to it.

Certainly this isn’t the first time someone has noticed the comments of post. And surely it’s not the first time someone has commented on a comment. But Abbott gave more space to quoting the comment than he gave to what the comment was responding to. In a conceptual sense, Abbott placed the emphasis on reporting the conversation the original issue itself–just the type of creative new reporting the ever-changing field calls for.