Classic Media Overreaction

The most charitable thing I'll say about the media with respect to the recent coronavirus cases in the U.S. and elsewhere is that they're grossly irresponsible. It is beyond obvious. The first thing I figured about print media after reading newspapers for two months is they love to scare the shit out of people and this is no exception.

Leave it to Shank to preemptively bellyache about losing precious access to locker rooms for a while. Let's cut to the chase:

In this spirit, I resisted the urge to hug Alex Verdugo when I first approached him in the Red Sox clubhouse Monday morning. Similarly, J.D. Martinez and I eschewed our traditional fist bump. But let’s not create a clear path to eliminate locker room access in perpetuity. Sadly, potential media-restriction policies were greeted with applause over the weekend by a couple of well-heeled sportswriters who insulted a century of hard work by beat reporters while simultaneously promoting erosion of media availability in professional sports locker rooms.

All of two people:

“I honestly don’t think we ever need to be in a locker room,” tweeted the estimable Grant Wahl, a 25-year veteran of Sports Illustrated who covers the US women’s soccer team. “Doing mixed-zone postgame interviews with the USWNT outside their locker room has never been a problem.”

Sopan Deb, who identifies as “NBA culture scribe” and has been with the New York Times for at least a half-hour, quickly chimed in with, "THIS IS 100 PERCENT CORRECT. It is so weird that for decades it became accepted practice for reporters to just hang out in locker room watching/waiting for athletes to get dressed.''

Both writers quickly backtracked. Wahl confessed that his tweet was “dumb,” while Deb deleted his message. But that won’t stop a legion of team-loving, media-hating fanboys from rushing to their keyboards to vilify journalists who fuel the 24/7 programming for our sports talk industrial complex.

Incorrect - some of us 'villfy journalists' because a lot of you are assholes, and Shank in particular is an irresponsible asshole in this case.

You'd suppose that would be the end of end of it and it is, for the most part. He also mentions all the reasons locker room access is a good thing and why, then starts retelling stories he's told six hundred times already. By the end of the column Shank dials back the hyperbole and just 'hopes' clubhouse / locker room access isn't banned permanently. He's talking out of both sides of his mouth with this column.

Kirk Minihane thinks he knows why Shank's all bent out of shape about it:

Written by a guy who spends his precious company time drinking at the EMC Club at Fenway during games. https://t.co/uAchSigsBB

— Kirk Minihane (@kirkmin) March 9, 2020