After reading all the appropriate threads, I think the strongest point to me is this.

It isn't Richard Justice's job to determine whether a bunt was the correct call which seems to be what he is intent on proving/disproving. Richard Justice's job is to ask Cecil Cooper why he made the call and then report it to his readers/listeners. Justice confuses the lines between who is the expert and who is the observer.

But this is what the ESPN media culture (and frankly it isn't just sports reporting, it's the same in news coverage - particularly politics) has become. The questioners have decided THEY are the experts and then bristle whenever their opinions are challenged.

The job of a good reporter is to know enough about the subject to ask the relevant questions and, if they feel their question wasn't answered, find another way to ask the question. But once the question has been answered, the reporter's job is stand aside and let the answer live or die on its own merits, not what the reporter THINKS of the answer.

I realize Justice is doing this in the context of a blog and he should be more able to express opinions in the context of a blog than in straight reporting but you see the sort of food fights it creates when a reporter mistakes being the expert, rather than being the inquisitor. Of course, there are many who would say cynically that the food fights are the actual goal because they create more hits to the website which can then use that data to sell ads for a larger sum, etc. but I don't think it does service to the journalism profession when the reporter tries to be the "expert". The news reporter is accorded access beyond what you or I gets and should be responsible in separating fact from opinion.

"Astro Fan Since They Were First Called Astros."