I’ve always felt like there’s no need to defend your reporting if you trust your sources and believe in your work. You don’t need to justify your process or go on sports radio or write follow-up pieces. All you have to say is, “my sources are sound, I stand by my work.”

That’s just my opinion.

Chris Sheridan took another approach, addressing the negative response to his New York Daily News article describing dysfunction and disagreement within the Sixers locker room and front office. His story, 76ers’ Brett Brown is heading for coaching purgatory, was widely panned and even skewered by Sixers Vice President of Communications Dave Sholler, who called it a “steaming pile of trash.”

Sheridan wrote a column for Heavy.com, titled “Why Sixers are Angry About Daily News Report on Ben Simmons” in which he compared Sholler’s response to that of a 4th grader and went on to blow a little bit of sunshine up his own butt.

Wrote Sheridan:

Sholler is the Vice President of Communications for Harris-Blitzer Sports and Entertainment, the conglomerate that runs the Philadelphia 76ers, New Jersey Devils, Prudential Center and renowned esports franchise Team Dignitas, according to Sholler’s Linked In profile.

So the guy makes a lot of money, and it is his job to protect his bosses, put out fires and try to control the message.

Sholler’s inability to do so with dignity in response to the New York Daily News story concerning internal turmoil within the Philadelphia 76ers was a dead giveaway that the story was right on the money.

Yeah? Maybe. I don’t know. I wasn’t in the locker room or eavesdropping on Elton Brand.

I did point out yesterday that I’ve never once seen Dave Sholler respond to a story in this fashion, and there have been plenty of unflattering things written about the team in the past. He did not, for instance, criticize the ESPN story detailing the confrontation between Brett Brown and Jimmy Butler before the Portland road game, an incident proven to be true and later addressed in detail by both Brown and Butler. In this case, Brown and Ben Simmons basically swatted Sheridan’s story away.

More from him after the jump:

…when you break a story that nobody else has, the formula usually goes like this: Deny, deny, deny. Attack the credibility of the reporter, say something venomous on Twitter to incite ridicule, and then hope everyone believes the cover story rather than the true story. They teach this stuff in journalism schools in public relations classes. I learned it myself from Professor Bill Baxter at Marquette University.

The tough part about being a sportswriter (actually, there are too many tough parts to mention) is navigating the human obstacles that get in the way of telling a story. Because the NBA and its 30 teams are so drunk on big money, they will go to almost any length to protect their paychecks and their franchise values.

Problem here is that the story had several factual inaccuracies, including incorrect dates, an incorrect location and the removal of a line stating that Kendall Jenner was partying with Ben Simmons at the time. So whether or not the stories and anecdotes are true, those errors stick out like a sore thumb and do a disservice to the actual reporting in the column.

Also, there’s nothing “tough” about being a sportswriter. I hate when people say this shit. Our jobs are luxuries, totally peripheral and non-essential. We are not out here uncovering corruption in local government or investigating the drinking water situation in Flint. We are writing about basketball, which is not nearly as important. This is not fire fighting or counter-terrorism or the overnight emergency room shift at Temple Hospital.

More:

In many NBA locker rooms, one-on-one interviews have become next to impossible because PR staffs make players “do media” in front of a pack of journalists. Speaking with reporters and broadcasters has become a chore more than an obligation, which is why SportsCenter is so often filled with highlights of athletes refusing to answer legitimate questions (yes, Russell Westbrook, we are talking about you.)

We live in a culture in which media members are called “enemy of the people” by the President of the United States, which kind of poisons that atmosphere for folks who try to tell the whole story and the true story while getting attacked on social media for doing their jobs.

Now he’s meandering a little bit, but I don’t disagree with the first part. Of course it’s a changing media landscape. You’re still allowed to go into the locker room to talk to players, but some are brought out to the press conference room to address the group instead.

Why?

Because there are 30+ people interested in talking to Joel Embiid, so you can’t do a locker room scrum and you aren’t getting him 1v1. Some older writers will complain about this while everybody else just does their best to adapt and create decent content in other ways. Maybe this is an issue of having too many credentialed media members, or too much media availability in general (it’s outrageously frequent in the NBA), which results in players and coaches just becoming exhausted with daily interviews and pressers. Sometimes less is more.

And yeah, listen, Donald Trump referring to the media as “the enemy of the people” doesn’t help, but isn’t the onus also on us to prove him wrong by creating fair and accurate content, as opposed to just making shit up? I’m not saying that’s what Sheridan is doing, making shit up, but plenty of other people feel like that’s the case here.