Popeyejones":39xs81g1 said:
Just b/c I'm curious, who are the Hawks beat reporters and columnists?
How many of them are there?
I'm just curious if the Cohn and Kawakami types are in some ways a result of niche partitioning in larger markets (L.A. has them, New York has them, Chicago has them), as it could explain why the whole concept seems so unfamiliar to Hawks fans.
I was wondering about this as well. I don't follow all outlets religiously, but I can't think of any resident muckrakers in the Seattle market. Certainly some are more respected than others, but no outright dirt-digging hacks that come to mind. Terry Blount is the ESPN beat guy and no one particularly likes him. He came from NASCAR and had big shoes to fill when Sando moved up in the world. Still, he seems more of a boring report-the-obvious guy than an angling-for-controversy guy.
For the most part, our local football media reflects Pete Carroll's style and approach. He has "tell the truth Monday" as a way to identify mistakes, problems, and concerns out in the open, where they can help everyone on the team create solutions. He's relentlessly positive in this endeavor.
Some of our radio guys are more annoying than others, depending on personal taste, but I think they're mostly trying to be honest, accurate, and solutions-based in their analysis. They're capable of needling and over-thinking as much as anyone, but I don't see or hear much in the way of drawn-out tirades or myopic crusades. Maybe the more avid readers could shed light on the columnists.
As an example, we can look at one of the more surprising Seahawks stories of the past few years and how it was handled. When the Percy Harvin locker room problems surfaced, everyone was surprised – not that Percy was a problem, but the extent to which he proved to be the cancer some thought he was and that the story remained under wraps for 7 or 8 months. Before him we had good reason to believe the Seahawks locker room was perfectly harmonious. We had direct access for a season or two with Michael Robinson's Real Rob Report. The year we got Percy was the year Mike's show went away. Without that access we could only assume everything was still going smoothly.
Then came the bewildering, sudden decline in Percy's production, followed by the shocking trade to the Jets. Only after that did we get the confirmation of all the red flags present before we acquired him. We found out about the fight with Golden Tate during Super Bowl week and about Percy refusing to go back into the Cowboys game. We found out about his attempts to divide the team like high school cliques and his disdain for Russell Wilson's lack of "blackness."
Everyone got their chance to shout "told ya so" at Pete and John Schneider. Some got plenty riled up. The team was 3-3 and once again had no dynamic receiving or returning threat. Pete and John got plenty of flack from fans and media, especially for the draft picks and cash they dished out for a known head case.
But for the most part our local reporters and analysts looked at the new info as completing the puzzle. There had been so many questions about the fledgling offense and how we couldn't get Percy involved despite having the same coordinator he had during his best moments in Minnesota. Starting the 2014 season our tight-knit team had an odd feel about it beyond a typical "Super Bowl hangover," but no one could put their finger on exactly why.
The collective confusion finally made sense when we realized everyone involved was "protecting the team" which is one of Pete's three rules. In short, Pete's success, general openness, and positivity earned him enough credit that no media person was going to gain much traction by trying to crucify him for the Harvin debacle. But they did note that it was a failed attempt, and a costly one, in a tell-the-truth kind of way.
Personally, I think that was the accurate take. Pete genuinely wanted to give Percy a chance to be great on a great team. He recruited him out of high school. His history of success with guys like that (special talent, troubled past) showed his intentions to be sincere. And it went a long way in Pete and John's favor that they cut bait, admitted their mistake, turned the season around without Percy in the way, and set their sights on one week at a time, toward getting the team to the big game again.
Not all coaches and GMs are that forthright with their failings. When Pete owned up to it, all the media could do was agree with him. Everyone's on the same page that way. It would have been easy for someone in Pete's position to say, "Look, we run the team, you don't. We make thousands of decisions. Some are tough, some are really tough. Back off and let us do our job." When a coach or GM gets defensive and closes doors, that's when the media go to great lengths to get inside info. If the media get a chance to contradict a tight-lipped coach, GM, or executive, they're apt to make a big deal of it. When that fails, they might just start passing off speculation to fill in the gaps.
I've seen opposing fans react to Pete like he's an oily used car salesman, but he's as open, trusting, and confident in his approach as any coach. He's the extreme on the sunny side of the spectrum. (On the other side is the keeper of all things cloudy, closed-off, and sinister: Bill Belicheat.) The media here responds in kind, and understands Pete's instances of protecting the team because he's so transparent and accessible in so many other ways.
