Good grief

[Tom Baker]

Poor little sports reporters!

On Monday, Baltimore Head Coach Brian Billick held a press conference in which he lashed out at the members of the media in attendance for their pursuit of the Ray Lewis "situation" (last year's murder rap), or whatever you'd like to call it.

Reporters were heard to curse Billick afterward, feeling his comments were unfair and abusive.

Here's the text of the e-mail I sent to The Sporting News (it's sort of long):

From all the furor over Baltimore head coach Brian Billick’s press conference this week, you’d think Billick took turns singling out reporters and dishing personal insults against their families, before going out to the parking lot and slashing everyone’s tires.

A sure sign of things starting to go badly awry: the sports media needs to start checking its collective ego at the door. The sports reporters Billick addressed on Monday were there to cover his press conference and report was said. That’s all. If Billick wanted to use his forum to launch into a tirade, that’s his option.

What’s ridiculous are all the hurt feelings circulating around the sports media in the wake of Billick’s comments. Reporters were heard cursing Billick afterward and wondering why they have to put up with abuse like that. You’d think these guys were filing their reports from a war zone with a sniper’s bullets whizzing overhead, not from some climate-controlled press room in Tampa, Florida that probably included a fairly decent spread of free food and drink.

Quit griping about it, report what happened, keep the hurt feelings to yourself, do your job, and move on to the next event. The bottom line is that sports reporters are paid to write about sports. It’s the best job in the world, if you ask me, and complaining about having to listen to some coach’s tirade indicates an almost ridiculous lack of perspective.

What's the take on this?

[iFroggy]

Interesting topic. Hey, look, I mean the media dishes it out. They can say 'I didn't say this' or 'Not me', but the media as a whole does it. They dish it out and they can take it in my opinion.

[Tom Baker]

TSN's web site printed my comments! I was surprised to see them do that. I wonder what kind of feedback that will generate.

Personally, I'd sit through all the tirades in the world for a Super Bowl press pass and a job writing about it. Most beat writers aren't the most well paid folk in the world, but come on, you're PAID to watch games and write about them. How cush is that? The word "stress" should never occur to you unless you're just slow and keep running into your deadline.

[Marc]

Originally posted by Tom Baker
TSN's web site printed my comments! I was surprised to see them do that. I wonder what kind of feedback that will generate.
Congratulations, do you have a link to it?

[Nate]

Found it for you Marc: http://www.sportingnews.com/voices/voice_of_the_fan/20010123.html

[iFroggy]

Congrats on getting your submission posted, Tom.

[Tom Baker]

Thanks! I guess that's about 1 minute of fame...do I have 14 more coming my way?

[MedicTJ]

Sorry for the leave of absence there, fellas. Had some work to get done.

M.James and myself both write articles for e-sports. Now, speaking for myself, that doesn't make me a journalist per se but it does give me the unique opportunity to look at things from that perspective.

Most reporters are out to get a player or coach to "make headlines". They want someone to say something that is going to get noticed. Sometimes things get taken much too far. Jim Gray (whom I can't stand) busting on Pete Rose on national TV is an example. Gray almost got fired for what he did and he's now looked upon as a snake by his own colleagues.

I, personally, don't care to hear Lewis' comments on last year's incident. It's over. It's yesterday's news. Billick was trying to answer the questions before the questions were even posed. He made a mistake and made Lewis that much more of a target. His tirade added fuel to the proverbial fire.

The truth is that this game has become more of a media spectacle than anything else. That's unfortunate.

If I could change anything myself, I would eliminate all the glitz and glamour. I would make sure that all NFL stadiums had a chance to host the "big game." Not just somewhere that has a warm climate. I wanna see an "Ice Bowl" again. Why not let the game be played in Green Bay? Or Chicago? They like to have all this entertainment at half-time. I'd personally like to see Madonna in a bra in 5 below weather.

[Marc]

Good post, Medic. I wanted to clarify that I am not a regular writer for e-sports.com, but I assure a good portion of the Sports Central content gets re-published there. I didn't know you wrote for e-sports.com, how ironic. Anyway, thanks for posting!

[MedicTJ]

I've written 3 articles for them so far, with the next one coming up sometime this week. You can look for them under the name "TJ Flickinger"...My bad! I thought you knew. LOL

[wah]

I hope Gray never gets to cover another game. What he did to Rose was very low, but that seems to be his job description.

And I'm all on Billick's side, the media portrays people as whatever they think will sell the most issues, or get the highest ratings. They have no conscience when it comes to how their portrayals affect real people's lives. Seeing the reporters stacked four deep around Lewis, all asking the same stupid questions, was just sad.

[mattzeme]

From Billick's and the Ravens' team-wide insensitivity on the Lewis issue, to the media's pointless, let's-not-move-on mentality, there are no winners in this whole sorry episode, a not-too-infrequent occurrence these days in the NFL and in pro sports as a whole.