Deadspin, Other Blogs Blamed For The Whole Erin Andrews Scandal By This Fox Sports Writer

Deadspin is racing up the Google search trends today after mainstream press began blaming them and other blogs for “creating” the Erin Andrews peephole video phenomenon. In particular, Fox Sports writer, Jason Whitlock (pictured), wrote that the blogosphere lives to cannibalize on stories like this, and that the main reason people are outraged over this whole thing is because Erin Andrews is white. This guy lacks a fundamental understanding of how the internet works and is totally missing the mark with his racism charge.

As everyone in the world knows, ESPN’s girlie girl Erin Andrews was secretly videotaped in the nude and the video spread like a bad case of the herp this week. The video has actually been floating around for months, but for some reason it was discovered this week and unleashed on the world.

Whitlock points the finger at Deadspin, the popular sports related blog. According to him Deadspin exploited this gross invasion of privacy for their own prurient interests and page hits (a charge that could easily be hurled at many blogs, including this one.) It is true that many people that read these blogs searched out the video for their viewing pleasure. It is also true that we in the blogosphere have spent a lot of time reporting on this story. But is it our fault or are we just a convenient target?

First of all, the blogosphere and Deadspin were far from the only people reporting on this story, as everyone from ESPN to Fox News (irony!) were all in a tizzy over this story. It came up on million’s of people’s email news feeds, newspapers, and sports radio broadcasts. With the countless hits this story and the related video received, is it even conceivable that that many people got it only off of Deadspin, Anyguey, or any other blog?

Also, Whitlock doesn’t seem to understand how the internet or the blogosphere work. Print news and other forms of old media work on exclusive scoops and being the first on the scene. If you are the first to report it, the story becomes your thing. The internet, however is a vast echo chamber, where the millions of users that are connected pass along stories like a blunt at a reggae show. We often pick up the story from another source and give it our own spin, in our case from a modern Latino perspective. These stories exist out in the ether of the web and will go viral whether or not a blog reports on it. We report on the stories that are out there, to not do so would be to neglect our very function. Blogs filter the noise in cyberworld to present you with what is important, interesting, or funny.

As for the charge that the only reason people gave a crap was because she was white is absurd. She is a well known attractive celeb and she is naked, that is why it was popular. That people were outraged is not because she is white, but because it was made in a gross violation of her privacy. She was just getting dressed when some perv came and videotaped her. That’s fucked up. It isn’t like Kim Kardashian who knowingly participated in making a sex tape (drip, drip, drip), and capitalized off of it by getting her own TV show. In Erin Andrews’ case a crime was committed and she was an unwilling victim of a peeping tom. No one is going to judge her on this video because she had no part to play in the creation or distribution of it. This would be true if it were Oprah Winfrey, Salma Hayek, or Lucy Liu that had been videotaped naked. Perhaps it is wrong that people have an interest in seeing naked celebs, but is it really? Is it not human nature to look at something that calls our attention, like looking at a car accident or staring at the cute waitress’ cleavage?

The irony of course, is that by reporting on how horrible this whole phenomenon has been isn’t Whitlock also perpetuating the story’s continued existence?

Whitlock: Who’s To Blame For The Erin Andrews’ Scandal? [Fox Sports]