NFL Reporters Discuss What It's Like To Cover Their Respective Teams
Good stuff here from Richard Deitsch, who talked to a bunch of NFL beat reporters, including Les Bowen, about their experiences. I’d recommended reading the whole thing for those of you who get maybe just the slightest bit horned up by sports media conversations, but here’s Les talking about Jeff McLane getting kicked out of the press box:
Bowen: Ah, well. Since I was sitting two seats down from Jeff at the time and have been extensively interviewed, you probably know how I feel about this. If not, I’ll summarize:
A. It was an absurd overreaction by the Eagles to a relatively minor argument.
B. There was no reason whatsoever for an Eagles PR person to tell reporters who were discussing what happened on a play to quiet down. It speaks to a mind-set among media relations people these days that their job is to control and limit, rather than to try to facilitate access and coverage. The old view was that our coverage basically helped their product, the more the better. I don’t think most under-30 NFL PR people would even know what you were talking about if you posited that now. They think they are there to make sure we don’t bother the players and coaches too much. We are a necessary evil, except they aren’t too sure about the necessary part.
C. The executive who made the extraordinary, and as far as I know unprecedented, decision to have Jeff removed from the press box and the stadium has very little sports media experience and might not have understood what a bleepstorm this action would create, over something not even close to bleepstorm-worthy. Though I tried to tell her, as it was happening. The fact that the Eagles just seemed to want to forget the whole thing the next day would lend credence to this interpretation.
D. But for people out there who don’t work in the media and don’t know: Sometimes disputes between reporters and team officials happen. When they do, the normal course of events is for someone in charge from the team to arrange a meeting, possibly with the reporter and his or her editor, to discuss the team’s issues. That happens fairly frequently. Ejecting reporters from stadiums during games does not.
Other than that, a lot of good observations from Les here about millennials and social media, and I say that only partly to butter him up because he’s going to be a guest on our podcast this week. Feel free to send some questions.