I know plenty of people looking for work right now, and I’m very thankful I’m not among them. I wish you the best of luck finding something, and finding something you want to do.

I thought I would have a job by the time I graduated. I won first place in the Georgia College Press Association awards, designed an entire magazine by myself and helped bring my college newspaper back to a front runner at the GCPA awards, winning 10 awards.

I’m less than two weeks from graduating and only had one interview and the interview wasn’t even for a job, just a meeting so when something does open up.

I would love a job writing about NASCAR but I know that will never happen especially with the way the economy is right now.

ESPN also needs to take a step back and realize that sometimes blogs do know the entire story. I don’t know this blog or ESPN has made plenty of mistakes before and as far as I’m concerned, some of their reporters do very unethical things especially considering the sport they are covering.

They are used to exercising heavy handed control over the media. With the demise of traditional reporting outlets, the ability to wield that control is fading away.

Of course, the alternative for them is to have little to no coverage. Wonder what they would think of that?

I think it will be interesting to see where the NASCAR media is in the seasons to come. I know I haven’t written much about the media, but I will check in with this as we move forward.

I have observed the snobbery of a few of the prominent NASCAR reporters and websites, but I suppose they have earned the right to do a little ‘Marshall-Matt-Dillon’ swagger.

What I don’t care for in this new world of everyone getting a website of their own and thinking they are the next new Sheriff of NASCAR reporting is not having a town council or Governor (meaning an editor) to answer to. One most reprehensible tactic is being able to post multiple responses to an article, appearing to be adoring fans but are really the authors of the articles themselves, building phantom fan-bases with no one able to stop the practice. Anyone skilled in picking up the personal nuances of a writer’s style can catch what is occurring but can do little about it; a post pointing out the obviousness of it all will surely be deleted. And on it goes.

On the other hand, not all of the ‘new towns’ cropping up around the current ‘Dodge Cities’ are run by varmints. The ‘Marshall-Matt-Dillons’ had better be ready to accept that, or they may need to soothe their bruised egos at their local Long Branch Saloons.

As race coverage (and main-stream news, for that matter) becomes more and more decentralized, I’m really concerned with the accuracy of the reporting. Without the financial resources and research staff of a newspaper, radio station, or other broadcast media, I fear even more disinformation will be given credibility without deserving it.

I worked for 25 years on software systems for newspapers and other print media. Many of us building IT systems tried to convince the decsion makers in the major media to embrace the web – we were pretty much ignored. Had they opened their eyes 10 or 15 years ago, newspapers would own the internet now. Unfortunately, they couldn’t see beyond their precious classified sections – you know, that big thick part of the paper that you don’t see anymore.

I admire the web pioneers who are trying to fill the void now. I only hope they can find a way to make enough money to do the reporting justice. It’s a lot more than just good writing and having an interesting opinion (though that does help). The ingrained knowledge of an organization, and the research that a well funded organization can afford is what has traditionally made newspapers the leaders in NASCAR, other sports, and general news reporting. We will all loose a lot when that goes away, and it is happening soon.