New Orleans Saints Media Coverage is a Rotting Fish

I’ll be back on the air and covering the team very soon. The thing that I am most happiest about is that the hand cuffs that have been on me for years no longer exist. And we have an awful lot to get caught up on.

Marcus, you made my point exactly. Yes, newspapers are near death but while blogs are great, we don’t report or cover the team. Maybe Wilkerson can give the info we want to hear about and ask tough questions. Hey Kenny, just please don’t tease us like you did at WWL always telling us about all the stuff going on with the team that YOU CAN’T TELL US ABOUT. If Jeremey Shockey does something dumb, tell us as soon as you know it, not three weeks later…I can’t wait that long for my Saints dirt.

Hap that is exactly what I am talking about with the hand cuffs. I never could get folks to understand that I was constrained and not ALLOWED to say things sometimes. Heck I was told on many occasions to NOT report something that I knew because the Saints would get ticked off. So I had to sit on it. The thing I regret is that I shouldn’t have said " well I know but I can;t say" I should have handled that better. But it doesn’t matter any more because I am working now for a station that is NOT the station of the Saints and has a financial investment to be concerned with.

Kenny’s job and all media covering the team is report the truth. If the a story is negative and hurts the Saints that’s the Saints problem. And as a fan if the team expects me to buy tickets, Saints gear, NFL Sunday Ticket, watch NFL Network, etc then they should expect me to want critical/ negative information about teams.

Fan is short for fantatic..I want to know everything…period. The good, bad and ugly and no one in the New Orleans media delivers it.

When was the last time local media broke a story?

And Kenny if you give me good accurate dirt on the Saints I’ll find your reports and love them..but I’ll still hate you..I’m so conflicted!

The media covers the Saints the best it can. OK, yes, there are sunshine pumpers in the group.

The biggest problem with the setup in covering the Saints – or any franchise/college/team – is that credentialing goes through the team. Write or say something the franchise doesn’t like and there’s a good chance you won’t be covering said franchise much longer.

This doesn’t necessarily make it right. But there is a bit of a hand-cuff effect going on. Back before pro sports became all about keeping secrets and keeping everything from being reported, this wasn’t necessarily a problem. Coaches and sports information departments realized the media had a job to do and the good came with the bad.

Now no coach or public relations rep trusts anyone. And they control a great bit of how the information gets out because they’re the ones who grant the access.

This isn’t to say that the media shouldn’t cover the Saints, or Hornets, or LSU, or any other team with a finer toothed comb.

But it’s definitely a hindrance in getting full, in-depth coverage.

By the way……Hap……hate is an awful strong word

Pretty much all the media drive me crazy, although I hope you get better and I’ll be praying for your wife.

When you mention being hand cuffed how much does WWL control things? They didn’t seem to control Buddy and it just seems like you guys always were reporting great stuff then he died and it stopped. What changed? I mean it’s not like the Saints feared Buddy. Are ratings down and they think not reporting negative stuff will improve ratings?

And again everyone should keep your wife in your prayers…

Right there is the crust of the whole story. Buddy didn’t care if they let him go or not. He was set in his ways and more than happy to go into retirment if the station ran him off. He used to tell me all the time after I would give him some delicate information " I’m going with it and if they tell me to go home then that’s ok too" I used to laugh at how he would refer to being let go as being told to " go home’ but anyway that’s how it was. After he died things changed big time. Frankly I wasn’t in a position financially to pick up where he left off and have the same approach that I didn’t care if they told me to go home. A part of me deeply wnted to do that but I needed my job and was worried about supporting my family. There were several times that I told many people at thee office that maybe it was time for me to go because it was driving me nuts that I couldn’t completley roll with what I had. But sanity would take over and I would give in cause I wanted to stay there. There was and always be a big part of me that had planned to work there for the rest of my life. They did an awful lot for me but at the same time I gave those folks me heart and soul and went above and beyond more times than you can count. But like i said after Buddy died a lot changed and it still is that way over there and it’s never going to to back to the old ways. Gone are the days of indepth reporting. Being well read and having all the news that is already out there is good enough for them.I always worked under the premise of I wanted to know what everybody else was reporting but I wanted to also give folks stuff that they didn’t read eslwhere. How many times did you ever hear me report things that would then also come out the next day in the paper.
 Buddy told me back in 1994 when I was on my way to Lacrosse to try to keep up with the good reporters in town. And I told ’ f***k that i’m going after stuff ’ and i got some stories that year and when i came bcak he told me he was proud of them. it was one of the best days of my life. But like I said that all changed when he died.

So if media coverage isn’t a huge part of being a fan why does the NFL have their own bleeping network? Media ‘bashing’ as you call it has absolutely no effect on winning and losing. Last time I checked the New York media is out for blood every day and the Yankees have won 27 World Series titles.
So basically what your saying is all Saints fans should shut up, buy the tickets and watch the games. And the media shouldn’t report anything negative or something the Saints deem could ruin their team or cause them to lose.
In your world Big and Easy Saints get final say over everything I consume football wise.
That world sounds pretty #$%%
So let’s say a Saints player is charged with raping a women. Well, the dominos could fall all over the place and it sure could cause the team to fall apart but Kenny for the good of the team and the city should keep quiet and not get answers or make a fuss because the player is probably innocent and no one really cares any way all that matters is winning on Sunday…

what we the fans learn about the team doesn’t cause loses. If Colston and Shockey go ape @#% about play calling or let’s say Charles Grant had a fight with Brees(He did with Brooks so I guess in an alternate universe its possible)…whether or not we know of dirt going on in the locker room is not going to screw up the team and cause loses. The fight actually happening screws up the team and causes loses.

So when they are struggling I want answers and don’t except the Saints cliche excuses

So many of these type of conversations always seem to turn out to be conversations about digging into “dirt”. That’s not what it is all about folks. It’s not about ONLY trying to find out what is going on that might be bad stuff and guys getting arrested or drugs charges or who’s fighting with you. Truth be told I would much rather not know any of that stuff. But the question is…..if I or any other member of the media stumble upon that kinda news is it right to not report it or do the fans deserve to know what is going on ? My answer is….of course they deserve to know. Who out there would be ok if they didn’t know anything about Deuce , Will Smith and Charles Grant testing positive and then through reporters doing their jobs finding out that the league knew about the stuff that was in the Starcaps that was banned and didn’t tell the players. That is a negative , dirt type story that without question the fans should know all that is possible. So where do you draw the line and at what point should a reporter take it upon himself to dictate what he should and should not report. As far as if any "dirt " type stories ever had anything to do with the outcome of a game. Well if you truly believe that it could then you must also believe in Tinkerbell. It never has and never will. And there is never a time that a reporter should not report what he knows to be true, good and bad. Unless of course he is told by his employer that he shouldn’t or that he must first get the team to confirm what he has learned. Boy what a nightmare