There was a time in my life when I would relish the turning to the Globe and Herald’s sports page; now, not so much. There are 3 main issues that are making the old school newspaper sports column (and I am including reading it on the internet) irrelevant.

1. Over-saturation: Every single columnist now appears on 8 different radio shows and 25 different T.V. shows. Thus, when reading their sports column in the newspaper it is more then likely that they are regurgitating something they already said when appearing on a T.V. show in order to receive gift certificates to Davios and Eastern Clothing of Watertown. In addition, some of the younger writing talent has completely left local papers in order to pursue greener pastures in other media. (see Michael Holly leaving the Globe for WEEI and Michael Smith leaving the Globe for ESPN)
2. Repetitiveness: When reading a “new” column it feels like I am reading a reprint of a previous column by that writer. (Dan Shaughnessy is the biggest perpetrator of this) Writers just seem too lazy to come up with different angles on a story and even use variations of the same jokes over and over again. Some are so apathetic they partly plagiarize: (See Ron Borges and his suspension today)
3. Bloggers: Bloggers are proving that it does not take any special talent or skill to be a sports writer. No one embodies this more then Bill Simmons who went from being a no-name blogger to the most read and talked about columnist in the entire country. While most bloggers are not as talented as Simmons, I bet I can find you a few hundred bloggers in the Boston metropolitan area who are more interesting to read then Steve Buckley.