Jay Mariotti, new AOL columnist, has spoken, in a column this morning on the AOL Sports pages called “Sunnier Times in New Mainstream Media,” Mariotti has offered some compelling reasons why some areas of news, I'm thinking of financial and sports news in particular, will move on-line. I confess to several thoughts on Mariotti's piece.

First, I'm as appalled at the actions of the Chicago Sun-Times as Mariotti. According to Mariotti, while covering the Olympics during the summer, he was directed to write two pieces about an event, filed before the event, one would take the position that Michael Phelps had won the race, leaving blanks to be completed later in Chicago for details. The other column would cover the race if Phelps lost. “Both would be filed long before the event, which, in some quarters, would be considered an editorial directive to cook up fiction,” Mariotti said in his AOL column today.

Can it really be that a newspaper editor ordered this? If you're any type of sports fan, or have been near a press box of a game, you know that the writing of the final copy starts in the third quarter or the seventh inning or at the end of the second frame. Stars of the game are chosen before the end of the game, late details are often missing or over looked, but not always.

It is the way of sports writing for newspapers and electronic media on a deadline such as TV news.

Mariotti looked across at the bloggers and electronic magazines in the press center, calmly waiting for the end of the event and said enough. Readers were paying for details and were receiving shiny polished manure.

It is hard not to agree with Mariotti's assessment that a medium that professes to be delivering the latest news and the greatest details is failing at both missions. If the newspapers of today are going to compete with electronic media, on line or broadcast, they need to embrace their weakness: they are not the last word on the subject, they aren't even the most words on the subject.

Which brings me to the second thought, Jay Mariotti is reviled. As much as I agree with his assessment of the traditional media and as much as I agreed with much of what he said when he left the Sun-Times last year, the fact is, his colleagues, his sources and many (probably most) of his readers all dislike him.

At AOL he isn't writing a column for a newspaper any longer. He isn't just on “Around the Horn.” If he were, reader comments could be intercepted. They could be expected to arrive days after the column and any corrections would appear far from the offending column. And viewer comments for “Around the Horn?” When if ever are they relevant?

Now Mariotti is writing a blog. These entries are personal discourses. They are immediate, as Mariotti observed in Beijing. They happen at the moment. Considered thought is not placed at a premium, it is the output and turnover of the column that is important.

And readers are much more willing to deal with opinion they don't like in a rude, crude and aggressive manner than the roughest editor. Will Mariotti grow in this new ground or not? Can Mariotti, who likes to dish it out, take it back? Even more than at the Chicago Sun-Times, the AOL site will attract people who are more knowledgeable than Mariotti, more literate than Mariotti and more willing to go toe to toe with Mariotti.

Embracing the creation of a blog, you accept that you are going to be attacked,flamed, deconstructed or worst of all, ignored. Can Mariotti deal with the new universe?