• The column Dave Kindred writes for the National Sports Journalism Center website is always a must-read for me, but perhaps no more so than his latest piece. It's a rather good denuncation of Dan Le Batard's recent assertion in the Miami Herald that the endless 24/7 news cycle has not only dumbed-down the sports journalism profession, but made its practitioners even lazier than they've long been stereotyped.

There is a grain of truth when Le Batard says that:

"It appears to be getting dumber and meaner, a vicious combination. And then, with the instantaneousness of new media merging with the insecurity of old media, the pressure to be first is encroaching upon the duty to be right, never mind just.

"The result is more reckless, and less credible, than anything we've ever seen.

"It leaves sports figures vulnerable and exposed in more than one way, as Portland Trail Blazer Greg Oden learned."

But that's not what got Kindred's "knickers in a decided twist," as he admits while writing between rounds at the PGA Championship. It's the snide "toy department" jabs that those of us in this business have had to endure, and quite often in our own newsrooms, that are coming from within. Le Batard, now removed from the daily grind of sportswriting, gleefully piles on:

"If you consume sports media, you know the best-and-brightest don't go into my profession. They become doctors, lawyers, scientists, owners, whatever. Sports tends to be the place where people go to rest their minds from heavy lifting and . . ."

This is where Kindred, who previously hasn't been afraid to take issue with fellow members of the Tribe, really lays into Le Batard:

"Covering a major golf championship is work at a high level of sports journalism. None of the men and women here for newspapers, magazines, websites, television, radio, blogs – none arrived by being the lazy, ignorant, hypocritical incompetents of Le Batard’s broadbrush insult. For that matter, Le Batard is the antithesis of the stereotype he created in the unfortunate column in question here. Edwin Pope, forever the Herald’s star in sports, long ago told me that Le Batard earned his column by being 'bright as hell,' ambitious, competitive, creative, 'and working like a dog.'

"What’s not to like about a guy like that?

"What’s not to like about Sally Jenkins? The best sports columnist at the Washington Post, she’s at Whistling Straits traipsing up and down steep sand dunes in pursuit of Tiger. I once asked her father, Dan, what made her so good.

“ 'She’s married to the craft,' he said. "All the good ones are."

I posted Le Batard's column on my Facebook page a few days ago, a bit too busy at the time to comment but realizing that I and others had been thoroughly insulted for passionately choosing this as our life's work. But as a fellow Tribesman noted, it's easier for Le Batard to say this now that he's not having to hustle for locker room quotes. To cite Allen Iverson, Jose Canseco, Barry Bonds and Terrell Owens was more than over the top:

"LeBatard is growing into a greater apologist the more he approaches celebrity and further he gets from being a writer. I think it's hilarious that he left journalism to have a talk show about nothing, yet feels comfortable wading back in and commenting as a journalist. He's becoming harder to stomach and I'm generally a fan."

Quoting Mark Cuban as saying sportswriters were "the dumbest guys in the room" is a bit rich for Le Batard, too. This is the same Mark Cuban who not long ago suggested that pro sports teams should hire such writers because of the decline of newspaper coverage. Kindred didn't note that, but he did add this broadside against the Dallas Mavericks owner:

"As if there aren’t idiots aplenty filing lawsuits, defrauding Medicare, and paying Dirk Nowitzki $80 million to keep on not winning anything . . ."

How's that for an old-school sportswriting barb?

• The usually low editorial standards at Deadspin don't normally generate much than a snicker and head-shaking. But Bill Krueger of Poynter Online wonders if the snark-infested sports site went over the line when it published a post about Brett Favre allegedly transmitting photos of his private parts to a New York Jets sideline "reporter."

Not because it published a post contending the quarterback allegedly transmitted photos of his private parts, but rather that Deadspin blogger A.J. Daulerio broke the confidence of his source. Jenn Sterger doesn't exactly fit the definition of a traditional journalist, having been a former Florida State "Cowgirl." Still, you have to wonder what she was thinking passing this along to the likes of Deadspin, asking for confidentiality and expecting her request to be honored. And then getting this e-mail from Delaurio, as cited by Krueger:

"I'm very close to running your Favre allegations today. I've spoken to the Jets about this. So let me know how you want to proceed, please. I'd prefer you were on the record about this stuff, but I understand if you don't want to be. However, I do have our email conservations we had and, frankly, that's enough to get this started. Not trying to dick you over, but, there was no way I was going to sit on it forever, either.

"So lemme know."

Lovely choice of threatening words, eh?

Le Batard was wasting his energies in the wrong precincts of the sports media universe.