K. Sawyer Paul of International Object is a friend of Cageside Seats and upon seeing my article on CM Punk calling out Dave Meltzer and the pro wrestling media, offered his take on the situation over at his site.

An excerpt:

What do journalists believe when the industry they report on disdains them? There are reasons to disdain pro wrestling journalism as a whole. The vast majority of it is petty, poorly written, and based on the TMZ model of scoops and rumours. All of the major wrestling websites operate at best on link bait and worst on utter lies. ... I don't think Punk is petty for picking on Meltzer. As a guy who's picked on Meltzer, I can say it feels pretty good in moderation. But the problem isn't that both sides hate each other. The problem is that one side has sucked at their job for so long that the other side thinks they're scum. Which direction you think the arrow goes will definitely say something about the skin you have in the game.

Paul is one of the good guys and I strongly encourage you head to his site to read the rest. With the amount of readers who disagreed with my take on the situation, you might like his opinion on it.

Although it's occurring at the lowest levels, there's a silent war being raged on journalism in pro wrestling right now by folks like Paul and Thomas Holzermann, who also writes for us here at Cageside in addition to his wrestling blog. At some point, it became acceptable to act like you have backstage sources and then make things up because who is going to call you out on it? That's the norm in the pro wrestling media, where rumors are almost as valuable as actual proven information. There is a growing contingent of intelligent writers with a very particular set of skills who are working to change that.

Although you might disagree with some of our opinions around here, we're doing what we can to fight the good fight. Paul is too.

Plus, it's nice to have debate in situations like this instead arguments. Join in on both sides!