NFL investigating alleged harassment of female reporter in Jets locker room

NYDN reported that Ines tweeted that she felt embarrassed and upset and was reluctant to look at anyone in the lockerroom.
No, this is not something where AWSM fanned any flames.

 

But wearing a wedding dress to Super Bowl media day and riding on the shoulders of Colts players doesn't embarrass her.

 

Craig Sager dresses like a cartoon character. Woody Paige ate dog food on national TV.

How's their credibility?

 

Nonexistent.

 

And yet there they are, night after night, day after day, on national TV and in the paper, writing and talking about sports.

 

If they were standing on the sideline doing an interview, and players/coaches were whipping footballs in their general direction for the sole purpose of clowning around and making the interview impossible, someone would complain.

This isn't about credibility. If a 'reporter' shows up and makes a fool of him/herself, that's on him or her. The league and its players aren't supposed to sink to the same level of dopiness.

 

Exactly.

And we're up to maybe seven coded versions of "She was asking for it."

 

Or at least damaged.

Isn't it perfectly possible to believe that the Jets were wrong, and should possibly face discipline for their actions, but at the same time question whether the conduct and dress in question here falls well below the standards of professional journalism?

Because if you're not meeting those standards, you really don't belong in the locker room.

And maybe that's the greater point here - that this sideshow was fine up to a point, but there's a difference between the Super Bowl media day circus (a sideshow itself) and a NFL locker room in September, and if you want to be treated as a journalist in an NFL locker room, then start acting and dressing in a manner that will move you closer to your fellow journalists and less like someone wearing a wedding dress to a press conference.

 

I guess you haven't seen the clips where Baron Davis, Kevin Garnett et al. are asked a question about the game and respond by making fun of Sager's tie, and then they take it back to the studio so Ernie and Kenny and Charles can make more fun of Sager's tie. Also, Sager is not a journalist, he is paid by the broadcaster and is part of the entertainment.

 

This woman was a credentialed reporter doing her job and got hasseled by some jackasses. Period. The jackasses, all of whom spent an entire TV series proving to America that's what they are, should be fined a bundle by the NFL, starting with the owner and going on down through the organization.
The reporter in question is a clown act. It's not like she's the only one in the business. And it is our professional obligation out of self-preservation if nothing else, to defend her to the max, clown act or no.
I know it's not "we" or "our" anymore as far as I'm concerned. Sorry about that.

 

Low as hell, if you refer to their "journalistic" credibility. Just fine, if entertainment is their goal. And whose to say it isn't?

This is sports journalism. We're not curing cancer here. Nor are we reporting on people who are making the decisions that will shape the future of society.

It's a different media world. Not everyone has our stated "standards" of dress, fraternization with athletes, etc. Entertainment is what they're looking for. Of course, it's what our media world seeks as well; we're just not honest about it.

In that vein, Ines Sainz fits right in. It might be contrary to what we want to expect in our journalism world (any number of opposing examples notwithstanding), but it's pretty common elsewhere.

 

I know you're trying very hard to make the giant leap of equating this treatment to rape, but there is a worthwhile discussion to be had here about professional standards.