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Yes, I mostly watch the racing from afar, and I don’t really see what I suspect, but it jives with the scene in local media, and I’m dating myself, as I do consistently at this stage of my so-called career, but the wide, wide world of the sports media reminds me of the old Mad magazine feature, “Spy vs. Spy.”

When I was on the circuit, it wasn’t unusual for me to follow a driver around, or stake out his hauler, trying to “bump” into him without making it look obvious, but now it seems as if reporters follow one another around.

Why’s he talking to so-and-so? I better talk to so-and-so. Hey, so-and-so, what’s up? Hey, wait, now he’s talking to whatchamacallit. I better talk to whatchamacallit. Today it’s not like night and day, but a reporter used to have a little more space.

The whole profession changed so much while I was in it. I think the biggest reason is immediacy. When I started writing about racing, some people worked for dailies, some for weeklies, some for monthlies.

Now everyone works for minutelies. Even with what few actual newspapers that have survived to cover occasional races onsite, there are websites. They lose less money than their newspaper brothers because they do not require paper by the roll and ink by the barrel.

Bruton Smith is one of many powerful man who used to be fond of saying, “Never get in a fight with a man who buys ink by the barrel.” Web hits, tweets, slide shows, blogs, podcasts and the like go viral, somewhat like measles, but their power just seems less powerful. A man or a woman today can declare himself a journalist merely by signing up for a free website. I even wound up doing it myself. Oh, the shame.

Harlan Howard once wrote, and George Jones sang, of a fallen woman, “So don’t blame her, life turned her that way.”

Don’t be too hard on the fallen press. Life turned it this way.

If it’s too gossipy, it’s because one reporter is doing what three used to. The name of Joey Logano’s puppy is much easier to get than the length of his sponsor’s contract. Just use those words the team uses: “multi-year,” “multi-faceted,” “long-term,” and “fully integrated.” Meanwhile, is Kyle Busch a cat person or a dog person. How about Samantha?

Not that it wasn’t interesting back when notes columns were about the real reason Dale Earnhardt told Geoff Bodine where to stick it in ’92 at Wilkesboro, but it was c ommunicated more by way of press-box conversations.

“Man, you see that dog Calhoun brought with him?”

“See it? Hell, it damn near bit my hand off.”

Now it’s all atwitter in the form of tweets by means of Twitter.

Tumblin headed to Team Taco.

Check that. Tumblin headed to Team Jewel. Check that. Team Juul.

Hey, you got it wrong!!!!

Negotiations broke down. It was right then. When something else became right, I had it first.

Because everything is right now! Breaking news! This just in!

I’m sure it won’t be long till the minutelies give way to the secondlies, and then the split-secondlies, and by then, we’ll all be so dumb it won’t matter.