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I don’t get this. I really don’t.
Look, I believe in freedom of the press.
Of course I do.
I’m a journalist.
But the sports’ media landscape has changed a lot of over the years with the advent of more and more “media partners.”
When a local radio station makes a deal to acquire the broadcast rights for a certain team, usually there is an unwritten (or written rule) that you take it easy on your talk shows when talking about that team.
Go around the country and listen to flagship stations. The hosts are usually really careful with what they say about teams on their station. You can be critical, but you need to be a little more measured than the mainstream media.
On Sunday, Michael Kay, a talk show host on the Jets’ flagship radio station, ESPN New York, went off on Jets co-owner Woody Johnson on Twitter.
“Can somebody ring good old Woody in London and ask him what he thinks of Doug Marrone coaching in the AFC Championship game next weekend!” Kay tweeted on Sunday. “Through back channels Marrone was told the job was his and then Woody, a man of great conviction, started to read. The rest is history.”
Kay continued, “And this has nothing to do with Todd Bowles, who I think is a good coach. It has to do with an owner that got scared off his own conviction — and the strong recommendation of his consultants — by several columns in a newspaper. That’s pathetic.”
Kay is obviously referring to the Marrone’s candidacy for the Jets’ head coaching job that seemed to fizzle after Daily News writers’ Manish Mehta and Mike Lupica trashed the former Buffalo coach. It’s been theorized that Johnson backed off Marrone after the Daily News hatchet jobs.
Kay is friendly with Marrone, so that could be part of this Twitter rant.
But I just wonder how many teams would put up with a host on their flagship station talking this way about the owner of the team.
The New York Knicks are on the same station. I doubt that Kay, or any other host on that station would ever call James Dolan “pathetic.”
Because if they did, the MSG PR machine would wage war on that station, and would probably threaten to take the Knicks and Rangers to another channel.
Actually, the show that follows Kay’s program is hosted by an individual who works for the Knicks, doing the MSG studio shows around the game. He works for Dolan.
My point here is simple. For a flagship station, Kay’s language was probably over-the-top, but he thinks he can get away with it because the Jets too often take this stuff like a punching bag.
This needs to stop.
Kay needs to be told – “Treat us like the Knicks, treat us like the New York Yankees (Kay does Yankee games, so you know he’s not calling the Hank Steinbrenner ‘pathetic’), that is all we ask. No double standards with the vitriol.”
But Kay clearly considers the Jets low-hanging fruit.
January 15, 2018
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