MentalDisabldLst said:
Price is under fire primarily for the ham-handed (and that's putting it generously) way he delivered his epic rant, and the complete lack of public grace or ability to handle the media that it revealed. And deservedly so. But if he had, more gently, made a public statement to the effect of, "it hurts the team, and by extension the fans, when reporters don't exercise judgment in reporting on minor / nagging injuries, because it enables our opponents to better plan against us", I think it would have come off fairly well.
To answer your question, I think the line is based on a balancing of "extent to which there is public interest in this fact/story" and "extent to which revealing that fact/story would harm the subject that it is my job to cover as a local sports reporter". The former can overwhelm the latter as a consideration, sure, but there's also only a limited world in which the latter matters - primarily around injuries, extramarital affairs / similar shenanigans, and other such public-embarrassment issues. And in that world, I think most reporters are justifiably cautious about reporting what they hear without a compelling reason to do so.
Reporting on the composition and readiness of the roster is probably about 33% of the job description of a local reporter. Billy Hamilton was not in the lineup last week; it's the reporter's job to report on why. Either he was a DNP because he's not playing well, tired, or injured. The public has an interest in knowing which, the reporter has a right to report which, and the manager has no reason to discourage it but for some vague nonsense that it hurts the team that the opponent knows (what most already knew) that Hamilton was nursing a sore finger.
We're not talking about reporting troop movements here; every team has reporters who do the same things the Reds' reporters do, which includes letting the team's fans know what a player's injury status is. If Billy Hamilton (or Bryan Price) told Rosencrans or another reporter
off the record that his finger was sore, and that was the only way he knew about it, then Price would have a legitimate gripe when the reporter printed it. But that's not alleged to have happened here. Getting pissed when someone reports an accurate fact about why a player is out of the lineup is Crazytown. And so is getting pissed that a reporter writes a story about a player not even being with the team. After you lied to that reporter's face.
INTERIOR - Cincinnati Enquirer Newsroom
Editor: Rosencrans, were you in the locker room the other day?
Rosencrans: Yeah, why?
Editor: Was Joe from the Herald there?
Rosencrans: Yeah.
Editor: Was Garber from Redleg Nation there?
Rosencrans: Yeah, boss, everybody was there. Why?
Editor: I already knew that. You know how I knew?
Rosencrans: No, how?
Editor: Because they all reported that Mesoraco's locker was unoccupied. Why didn't you?
Rosencrans: Well, uh, because the Reds (soon-to-be-ex) Manager thinks that kind of stuff puts the team at a competitive disadvantage. Plus, he told me that Mesoraco was available, so I didn't want to embarrass him.
Editor: Yeah, well the next time you don't report something like that, you'll beat him out the door.
SCENE.