Post 100! Why I Write About the Sonics

SEATTLE - I started writing this blog for a few reasons, here they are:
#1 - To sharpen my writing skills through practice.
#2 - To write about something that I had a real interest and I didn't see myself losing interest.
#3 - To record my thoughts on the Sonics and be able to go back and see what I was thinking in the past.
#4 - To share ideas about the Sonics, the NBA.
#5 - I am a Communications Major, I study media as an undergratuate at the University of Washington, this forum allows me to share my ideas on writing, the media, reporting, journalism, media bias, definitions of media roles; all wrapped around a subject many people can idenntify.

There are a few other reasons that will come to mind as I write this, but I have to say that I didn't arrive at all of those reasons before I started this blog. I'm a Sonics fan.

My first post was a placeholder:

December 13, 2004

When I get around to it, maybe Thursday, maybe sooner
Oh ya, you can't wait around here all day hoping for something to read on the Seattle Super Sonics, so don't. I'll post about once a week, give you my thoughts, observations and critique on my team. This is a test page. Check back within a couple days and I should have this rolling.

Riviting.

This might have been the first story that I had written that was put together pretty well.
March 25, 2005
Swingman Cometh

For a few months I wanted to be a writer. A month after that story I started writing on another blog for a few months. I enjoyed the crowd that read and wrote there. But, as things there changed I had the feeling that my idea of media and writing was not quite the same as some of the people there. A few clearly had motives and operated in ways that conflicted with my ideas of journalism ethics, a healthy recognition of ones own bias, and whether I was part of some freelance Sonics PR group or if I was writing in a free press.
A couple of the writers there had crossed a few lines and I don't think they really knew what business they had entered through the blogger pass key. Ask yourself a few questions before playing around in an profession, like, what are the norms, ethics, and practiced methods?
As a reporter you do X, as a journalist you do Y, as a blogger you define Z. On that blog I didn't fit in that idea of journalism.

On new years eve 2005 I didn't feel like I could honestly participate in that forum so I stepped away and wrote this here:

I write here to improve my writing, what I write here is my opinion, my interests, to give focus to what is written.
I'll post regularly here, the other place I have posted is going bigtime. If that site wants to republish my writings, feel free, as long as you link back to this site to give credit.

I'm back here, and Happy New Year.

One of the writers from the other blog contacted me, via an exclusive yahoo group email list, to talk me into continuing to write at the other blog. I relented, I liked the discussions on the exclusive email list, I liked having a few more people read some of the things that I had written. I was also going to school at night an could ne commit to writing on my own blog enough to make it worth doing.

In my mind I thought that I would write something on the other blog once in a while and when I thought I wanted to write a longer story or rip somebody I would write that on my blog here.

Well, what kind of writer does that? Why was I doing this again? Oh yes, to improve my writing skills. How could I really do that if I'm not honest with myself when I'm writing? Everytime I wrote something I thought about what I shouldn't say. I had changed from a writer to more of a media critic, and how could I rip some of the writers on the same blog while possibly still having some kind of courteous discussion on the blog or the yahoo email list? "Hey, sorry for ripping you on the blog, how about that game last night?" Oh ya, that just makes me a two faced jerk, but how?

Well, I was having a problem being objective with the writing of a few people that I view as not having much objectivity, not in a journalism sense. Maybe that's a difference in perspective even among bloggers. I'm a supersonicsfan, I'm not looking to be a buddy to the players, beat writers, or readers. I'm interested in writing about the good, bad and ugly things that effect the team, including some of the press. A few of the writers on the other blog looked for ways to improve the image of the team, and I'm not in that business. That kind of thinking sends you down a path of limited objectivity. The Sonics have a PR department for that, players have agents for that, and if they are not doing a good job of selling their product then they need to get a new PR department and new agents.

I kept trying to resolve my motivations with that of the drivers of the other blog. There are some good writers there, but it just isn't me. To some extent I felt like most of what I was writing there wasn't really so much about writing but to somehow propel the blog and its writers to some bigger and better thing. I know it wasn't really like that but it just felt like that. I felt like I was working for that blog, running in place. It wasn't why I started writing. I wasn't being honest with myself or those other people on that other blog.

So, two weeks ago, after reading something that drove me crazy, I dropped out. I dropped off the yahoo email list, I dropped off Sonicscentral as a writer (though I'm still a reader and enjoy what they do) and came back to writing here, A week before the Sonics were sold.

Why do I write about the Sonics now? Because I'm a sonicsfan and I want to improve my writing without the group think. If the Sonics went away, and I hope they don't, then I would find something else to use to improve my writing.
I would still write.

Feel free to leave a comment, they are ALL moderated, it's a way to contact me without everybody reading your comments.