The next few hundred words will do me, and my profession, no earthly good.
I don’t think everyone writ large hates journalism or journalists. I think most people don’t think much, if at all, about the media and its function. Even though it is the first profession mentioned in the First Amendment of this country’s Constitution, its mission viewed as that important to the Founding Fathers.
I do, though, think a lot of people on social media — if they are, indeed, people, and not bots — hate the media, and will take every opportunity to crap on it, and its mission. Because it is in the best interest of those people/bots to corrode journalism and journalists, whether they cover the Jacksonville Jaguars or the president of the United States, to make what we do seem meaningless and irrelevant, and to take us down a peg by delegitimizing the importance of our work.
If we’re taken down any further, we’ll hit the earth’s core.
To be clear: This latest smackdown of the press was, mostly, an own goal — a defensive overreaction by many in my industry to, let’s say, an unusual postgame exchange between Lynn Jones, the longtime associate editor of the Jacksonville Free Press, in its 40th year of serving the Black community of Jacksonville, and Jaguars coach Liam Coen.
Jones has covered the Jaguars for years and makes no pretense that she’s a supporter of the team because it’s part of the community she and her paper serve, and the presence of an NFL team is good for her community. In this, Jones and her paper have every right to be at a news conference and ask questions, and certainly as much right as the Florida Times-Union, the big paper in town, or The Associated Press or ESPN or The Athletic for that matter.
Jones didn’t ask a question when given the mic after the Jaguars’ tough, last-second loss to the Buffalo Bills on Sunday. She gave an obviously still-emotional Coen a pep talk, a statement of support. And absolutely no one outside of that press room would have given it a second thought had ESPN’s insider Adam Schefter not only reposted the exchange Sunday afternoon, but also given his seal of approval for it to his 11 million X followers.
What followed was as much a reaction by media people to Schefter’s approval as to the actual event.
A lot of sports reporters went online to take issue with Jones’ comments to Coen, saying “it’s not our job” to comfort anyone after a tough loss. Some of the reaction was over the top and inappropriate to the moment — which was, after all, just a moment. It’s not like Jones went into some mawkish, minutes-long dialogue with Coen that bled out the time the other reporters had with him. She said what she said, for about 20 seconds, and gave up the mic.
Some tried, without rancor, to simply explain that what Jones did is not what reporters normally do in postgame situations. Others, such as my friend Jemele Hill, were sympathetic, but only to a point. Their tone, though, didn’t matter. All of them were dunked on with the quickness.
Non-journalists excoriated the media’s reaction. Much of it was justified. What was wrong, many asked, with a reporter being a person for once — a human being — and reaching out to someone who was hurting and needed a pat on the back? Could you not read the room? What on earth justifies you being such a stuffed shirt when you cover sports for a living? Get off your high horse.
Guilty, on all counts.
Because, guess what? Reporters are human beings, too. We mess up sometimes.
Reporters reacted that way because we are under siege. Our business is under siege. Not because we are doing our jobs badly, but because we are doing our jobs at all.
You don’t get rich being a reporter, but you can make a decent buck. In contrast, ChatGPT can write a decent paragraph or two, for free, and never complains about having to fly Southwest to get to Cleveland.
We find out things that teams don’t want us to know, because we have access to players, coaches and management on a daily basis, and we sometimes find out things that might be important. But team-owned media has just as much access, while not being at all interested in reporting things about their teams that will make ownership unhappy. And more and more of them are being credentialed, for daily and game access to the teams that write their paychecks, and writing or broadcasting team-friendly content.
Most reporters for traditional media don’t have rooting interests. (Anyone who says “we” when talking about a team that they purportedly cover is persona non grata in my business. Unless you’re getting tackled, or standing in the batters’ box, you’re not part of “we.”)
We root for stories, not teams or people. Is it easier if you cover a winning team? Sure. Everyone’s in a good mood and stays at their locker for as long as you need. But a team that truly stinks is fascinating in a far different, but no less potent, way. Who’s toughing it out, and who’s jumping ship? Those stories are good, too.
But people are getting credentialed for games and to cover teams who never ask a question, who are there just to get “content” for their Substack or their YouTube channels. And many of them have no problem expressing their fandom. Which is fine in and of itself, except it’s at odds with readers and fans of teams who really do want the whole, unvarnished truth of what’s going on with their squads.
We write stories on deadline that provide readers with color and perspective and analysis about why a game was won, or lost. Except almost every encounter between the media and players after games is now immediately downloaded to every team’s website, providing fans of those teams access to the quotes around and through which we write our think pieces and game stories. Again, nothing wrong with that — if you’re a fan. Not so good if you’re a reporter trying to feed the information beast with thoughtful content.
You don’t expect to be loved doing this. But you expect to be heard. It’s more difficult to be heard today above the cacophony of endless “debate” on television, which is not at all debate, but canned sports theater. And that is consumed. And that means “people are talking about” whether Ja Morant should be traded or Nick Sirianni should be fired. Which is then filtered down to us, as something about which we should write, or talk. Which keeps the churn going.
Our professionalism and work ethic can, sometimes, get us one-on-one time with our team’s star player, or players, who can come to trust us over time, when we show ourselves to be trustworthy.
Except, players are cutting out the middleman/middlewoman — journalists — altogether, and using their own platforms to center themselves, and their thoughts, about what’s going on. Or going on The Players’ Tribune and writing first-person accounts. Or agreeing to softball interviews with current or former players on their podcasts and shows. Those get-togethers have value, to be sure, but don’t challenge the players in any significant way.
And, our merely asking a tough question — the ones so many keyboard warriors insist we don’t ask — often gets us labeled as “fake news.” Or, sometimes, “enemies of the people.” Which will come as a real surprise to the First Amendment.
Pat McAfee, the punter-turned-internet/ESPN sensation, pays Aaron Rodgers to be on his show. It is not a platform upon which Rodgers is pressed about why he and his offensive unit struggled Monday night to generate any offense whatsoever against the Texans. It is a platform upon which Rodgers can talk about whatever he wants to, and never be challenged. Why should he expect to be? McAfee is his friend.
We are not — well, we shouldn’t be — friends with the people we cover. We are friendly with them, as they can be with us. We ask them about their kids, and they ask about ours. But we can’t be friends with them. Your friends might tell you the truth about things, but not with a smartphone in their hands, taping your reaction to their questions and putting it out on social media.
Which is why I’m not going to be lectured about the efficacy, or lack thereof, of my profession by Pat McAfee.
In a long X post about the Jones/journalism controversy Monday, McAfee decried most in my business as “curmudgeon bums” who “hate sports,” among other epithets.
Love seeing these sports “journalists” getting ABSOLUTELY BURIED for being curmudgeon bums..
OBVIOUSLY NOT ALL OF THEM but a LARGE % of these things hate sports.. they hate what sports are for people (happiness).. They hate what sports are for society (unifier).. they’re… pic.twitter.com/KOVLOUwXQ6
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) January 12, 2026
I don’t “hate” sports, or people who play them. I happen to love covering sports. Covering sports for almost four decades has helped me live a wonderful life and pay for my children’s education. It’s allowed me to see the world, and to write about people and events that I will remember fondly, and meet other people who have been friends for years and years. I’m not envious of athletes or the money they make; when sports leagues are doing well, I and everyone in my industry also do well. Because we have stuff to write and talk about!
But I don’t care how rich you are (very), or how much influence and power you have in the hallways of ESPN (substantial), or how many people tune into your show every day (millions). I don’t equate fame or fortune or power with journalistic competence. Having a big platform and access to multiple hours of airtime every week doesn’t make you qualified to talk about what I do for a living.
And, guess what?
I’m not qualified to talk about what athletes do for a living!
Take it away, Jim Mora.
This might be the truest thing ever said on a podium.
He was absolutely right. We don’t know! We aren’t professional athletes or coaches.
And that’s why we ask questions.
Most of us do so without rancor or anger. Because we’re trying to learn why, and how, teams and players do what they do on a field or court. We want to know why what happened on a play happened, or what was supposed to happen, and didn’t. And that’s why the time we have with coaches and players, whether during the week or after a game, is so precious to us. Because we don’t know. Because we want to find out the truth, or approach the truth, at least, in the fleeting time we have in front of players and coaches. Because our credential gives us the right to be there and to ask those questions. And this is true whether we’re covering the Jacksonville Jaguars or the president of the United States.
It doesn’t mean we’re all good at this. It doesn’t mean we don’t all fail at this on occasion. Our job is to just try, every day, to make sports a little more accessible to a few more people. To get people to understand a little more about the games and teams they love so much. But the price of that is having a free and independent press, which isn’t bought and paid for by bazillionaires. And it’s why we grumble and gripe about “rules” that don’t make sense to anyone outside our little group of misfits, and think ourselves much too self-important. And good people like Lynn Jones, who do their jobs and serve their communities year after year, sometimes get caught up in our hubris.
The rules (the rules!) of my company don’t allow me to link to the subscription page of the Jacksonville Free Press — one of 230 Black newspapers still publishing in the United States today. But I think it would be great if you subscribed. It would be a positive way to show that you really do care about papers like hers, and people like her, that shone brightly in the last few days, while my profession claws its way in the dark, still searching for the light.
