Eagles

I Sort of Agree With Angelo Cataldi’s Hot Take!

By Kyle Scott

Published: May 30th, 2017 · 2:32 PM EDT

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Angelo Cataldi went on a rant in his Philly Voice column:

After a bad season and now his absence from the first week of OTAs, Fletcher Cox should be cowering at the prospect of facing the Philadelphia media, the so-called toughest group of reporters and columnists in America.

He isn’t. I guarantee it. Because our city’s sports media has become as soft as a newborn kitten. This current group of scribes and babblers must have taken more courses in public relations than in journalism. For the most part, all they lack are pom-poms.

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When I moved here 34 years ago, I did so because it was the toughest sports-media town in America. Head to the archives and check out how Stan Hochman surgically dissected stingy Eagles owner Norman “Bottom-Line” Braman, or Bill Conlin’s stunning depiction of the Phillies’ hierarchy as drenched in alcohol.

In fact, you can also check out the way I covered Buddy Ryan in 1986, when I held him to every boisterous promise he made after taking the Eagles’ head-coaching job. I was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, but it wasn’t the biggest benefit from that work. Resonating with the fans in this passionate sports city was the real prize.

A lot of people will dismiss this column as yet another unhinged hot take from Cataldi. Certainly the Fletcher Cox stuff feels this way, and so does some of the Sixers commentary. Or perhaps citing Bill Conlin, who was a sexual predator. However, Cataldi touches on something that I think has some merit.

This is very similar to a rant he delivered on the radio last week in which he blasted the media for being too PR-friendly, too willing to trumpet the team line. I’m not sure that’s 100% the case – there are plenty of local sportswriters who excoriate the teams – but I do think many, many beat writers fall into the trap of dancing to the music that’s played for them.

Podcast intern Bill asked today if we should try to cover Eagles OTAs. Besides the fact that the Eagles would probably laugh off our credential request, I responded with an emphatic fuck no and explained that we’d fall into the same trap as everyone else. When you go to events that you wouldn’t otherwise cover if you weren’t in attendance, you allow teams to dictate their coverage. No one cares about OTAs– they’re only a thing because Eagles reporters have nothing better to do right now, so they go and tweet out horrid play-by-plays and write about whatever the topic du jour is (today it is Jim Schwartz). This is what happens when access dictates coverage. Obviously there’s value in going to games and some other team events, but most press availabilities are bullshit and a way for the team (or government or business) to keep the focus on a very narrow range of issues that they can live with, even if some topics irritate them. The reporting becomes simply regurgitating what your subject says, with perhaps some context and observation thrown in. Stray too far, and you lose access.

This is the ecosystem in which most mainstream reporters exist. They go to college for Journalism, learn how to cover press conferences and events, intern and occasionally get to cover said events, work their way up to covering a pro team or important government entity, attend events and press availabilities, and write about what happened. Once you’re in the bubble, it’s so hard to view it from the outside. It’s press-release journalism. There are some days where I can tell you what the guest list will be for local sports talk radio, Philly Sports Talk and perhaps the local news, because I often get the same press releases that those outlets do. [Person] has a new book out. [Celeb] is coming to Philly and available for media requests. [Team] is taking part in a community outreach program. Not all press releases or media availabilities are worthless, but a lot of them are.

So while I think Cataldi is barking up the wrong tree by whipping out the Cox thing, I don’t think he’s completely off-base that the media is a bit soft, or, more accurately, unoriginal, partly because they’re just doing things the way they’ve always been done. Of course, the alternative – yelling just for the sake of yelling – isn’t much better and is the thing that has turned off a new generation of sports fans from big, loud opinions. Couched in Cataldi’s knee-jerk conclusions about Cox’s underperformance are some good points about Bryan Colangelo and the Phillies, but they’re hard to spot because you wind up focusing on the hot air he’s spewing at Cox over something few reasonable people care about.

Anyway, the piece is worth reading here.