Does Bob Costas know what a blogger is?

Some recent comments by Bob Costas in a Miami Herald column are just the latest in the mainstream media bashing bloggers. What has always bugged me and was pointed out by Craig Calcaterra in the BTF thread discussing the article is why commentators like Costas seem to lack the ability to distinguish between bloggers and sports fans who comment on the Internet.

In his comments, Costas users the term “blog,” but actually rants about people voting on ESPN.com polls and people who comment on on newspaper sites, two things which are just, well, not blogging at all. Ideally, commentators would actually distinguish between good and bad blogs—I’m sure Costas wouldn’t like me to lump him in with, say, Stephen A. Smith. But comparing blogs to people voting on Internet polls is like comparing columnists to comedians.