Who needs the press box?

Sports Illustrated's Chris Ballard's "Writing Up a Storm" in the March 27 issue provides a glimpse of how the Internet is changing sports journalism. His profile of online sports writer Bill Simmons (who, without spending time in a press box or a locker room, writes one of the most popular sports columns on the Web) demonstrates "the empowerment of the fan." Print journalism have "almost become an afterthought," Ballard writes.
What does this mean for newspaper sports sections and magazines? What does it mean for sports journalists when traditional ways of buliding readership and reputations are vaporizing? More importantly, what does it mean for journalism's traditional mission: to seek truth and report it fully? There is a price we pay when rumor mills are passed off as reporting. Ballard's SI piece is worth a read.