5 minutes with : Signal to Noise

The "blogger interviews" continue over here and stepping up to the plate is the author of a blog that I read on a daily basis, Colin from "Signal to Noise". So yes, lets get this party started.

The facts...

Name: Colin
Age: 25
Occupation: Media hack
Location: California
Favorite teams: All four Denver/Colorado pro teams, the New York Mets, USC Trojans, and the Colorado Buffaloes.


The first question I usually ask is how the blog got started. So tell us, how did Signal to Noise get its start?

The blog got started as a sort of writing exercise and outlet. II was writing on anything I found amusing, infuriating, or interesting -- politics, sports, music, etc. I found more of my groove writing about sport, because politics and celebrity culture get wrapped up into it. I still write about music and politics from time to time.


How many hours a day do you spend going through the blogosphere and reading other blogs?

Probably about two or so, and another hour spent perusing newspapers online. It would be more if I didn't compel myself to leave the computer at times. There are too many funny takes and insightful pieces of writing, and dare I say, journalism, out there.


Take us through an average day of posting. How does that work?

My posting day starts at midnight more often than not. I get home from work, read some of the papers online (after reading a ton of content on the AP wire at work), and figure out if there's something I feel like writing about. If there isn't, I don't try to force it, but most times I wind up with at least two or three posts a day, and might add more in the morning before I go to work.


Explain to some of the readers out there that might not know what the "Channel 4 news team" is.

The Channel 4 News Team is the name Awful Announcing came up with for me, Just Call Me Juice, the Extrapolater, One More Dying Quail, and Run Up The Score when we all live-blogged the NCAA hoops opening rounds with him at his site. We'd all live-blogged college hoops, college football, and NFL playoffs at AA as well. That's where a lot of my initial exposure as a blogger came from, that live-blog work.


The title of your blog "Signal to Noise", where did that come from?

I have a degree in music -- the signal to noise ratio is something everyone who learns anything about recording is at least somewhat familiar with. At the time, it seemed clever by suggesting a BS filter -- raising the signal power to trump the noise.


Are there some bloggers/writers out there that inspire you and inspire your writing style?

Way too many, especially because my aim is to straddle the line between being snarky and serious. All the writers at the Starting Five do absolutely phenomenal work. The News Team guys are good writers. The Big Lead and Deadspin are obvious influences on a lot of us who do blog. The Hater Nation always finds some way to get a unique (and funny) take on something everyone else has already written about. FreeDarko is incredible, and the Mighty MJD is high up there for his "Letters From Pets" series alone.

I'm a frustrated fiction writer, so I have favorite authors -- David Foster Wallace, Nick Hornby, Dickens, Wilde, Walter Mosley, Nabokov, Richard Wright, Vonnegut, Dan Jenkins. As for sportswriters, I've lamented the day the New York Times put up the pay wall, because I can't read Bill Rhoden any more. Ralph Wiley and Hunter S. Thompson are also favorites.


What are the blogs that you read on a daily basis?

It's more like, "who don't I read?" or try to: Deadspin, The Starting Five, With Leather, Can't Stop The Bleeding, Stop Mike Lupica, Ladies..., KSK, Every Day Should Be Saturday, every News Team member, Foul Balls, Our Book of Scrap, Leave the Man Alone, Pacifist Viking, the Big Picture, The Feed, Larry Brown Sports, Sports Media Watch, Babes Love Baseball, Sports by Brooks, the Nation of Islam Sportsblog....literally, I could go on all day, and I'm sure I forgot someone -- look at my blogroll.


Give me your 3 favorite posts that you've ever done.

I'd have to go with these three:

1) The Book of LaDainian -- probably the first time I stumbled on something funny in my writing.
2) Whitlock's Quick Fix - This is more of a series that I put together in response to Jason Whitlock's tortured solution to "fix" NCAA hoops and football.
3) A Letter to the Ombudsman. Yes, I have a crush on Erin Andrews.


Favorite post on someone else's blog...

"Prayer to Jesus Concerning the Early Death of Brandon Jacobs" at KSK. I rolled over laughing.


Your regular job is in television news. Does that give you a different perspective when it comes to blogging. Do you look at the media in a different way because of that?

Yes. It's easier to see an established narrative in national media, because I know the pressures reporters and their crews are under to get reports ready daily -- these things lead to not making that extra phone call sometimes for one more perspective, or rushing the writing. It's a tendency that has worked its way over to sports media from the regular news media, and it doesn't really help the fact that telling a complete story in a minute or a half is difficult, if not impossible.


Sports blogs have really taken off recently. How do you see the future of sports blogs?

I honestly don't know. I think they've become a necessary voice for the fan, and some of the more talented writers and journalists who do original material in the blog world are rivaling the broadcast and print counterparts. Where it goes from here, though, as a whole? I don't know.


Dream job?

A regularly-gigging musician. I've played guitar for years, but the band thing never worked out after college and I needed to get a day job. I love what I do in TV news, though, and I'm happy to have it as a career.


Best sports memory (your favorite sports moment of all time).

I was only 4 years old, but I remember watching that Mets-Red Sox World Series in 1986 with my dad, who is a long-time Mets fan and the reason I pull for the Mets, even though I was born in Los Angeles. It was such a kick to watch them come back.


Worst sports memory?

Watching that stacked Denver Broncos team in 1996 lose to the Jacksonville Jaguars in their first playoff game (I had moved to Denver for middle and high school). Of course, championships for the next two years negated all that, but it felt awful at the time.


Best athletic achievement...

Just being able to play. I was not and remain unremarkable as an athlete.


Suggestions for a future interview?

Any of my fellow News Team members, Adam from the Hater Nation, D-Wil from The Starting Five, the guys from The Ghost of Wayne Fontes, The Head Chick from Leave The Man Alone, any of the Ladies..., the guys from And Here Come The Pretzels!, Larry Brown, HG from You Been Blinded, and Pacifist Viking.


Give me a World Series prediction. And even though it's early, give me a Super Bowl prediction.

Mets over Angels in 6; Patriots beat the Saints.