This went viral:
There’s a lot going on here. Let’s break it down:
This is the kind of stuff that fans hate and a good example of why people are so down on the media these days. It’s really not that important, the outcome of a regular season football game. If the guy doesn’t wanna talk, he doesn’t wanna talk. Plus, the Bucs did a lot of things wrong in blowing a two-score lead against the Bengals, so whatever. You’d think Gio was Bill Buckner after watching that clip.
People on the other side will say that athletes need to be accountable and should make themselves available, and that’s true, to a certain extent. In most sports it’s contractually mandated, and you should communicate to the fans, though my take is that it doesn’t have to be after every game and the media doesn’t necessarily have to be the conduit. You can go on your social media accounts if you want to.
Of course, if you build working relationships with the players and teams you cover, then exchanges like this rarely happen in the first place. Trust has to go both ways, and when you had guys like Phil Jasner in the Sixers locker room, for instance, you got hard questions but fair answers, because old school reporters understood that it was a two-way street and not some dog and pony show.
EDIT – I would say there does seem to be a divide along generational lines here. I think old school fans put more stock in the “getting answers” mindset while younger fans don’t seem to give a shit one way or another. If you’re one of the people who thinks there’s been a rise in “fanboy” media then you know what I’m talking about. There’s been a shift towards player favorability over the years, I think, while “hard questions” are less important.