Cosellout: Will Mainstream Media “Stop Snitching” or Clean its House?

Light another meaningless candle!  It’s…it’s almost as if Gypo Nolan had stopped staggering and started blogging!

“Stop Snitching” is also the clubhouse code in sports, perhaps the worse crime a player can commit. Just ask Jim Bouton about his life after he wrote the classic “Ball Four”. Ask Jason Grimsley if he has attended any baseball cocktail parties lately. And ask Jose Canseco about his REAL crime. A fraudelent career based on steroids use? Nope. Being “a rat”? Yup. Then, with rare exception, there is the unspoken code of journalism: “THOU SHALL NOT PUBLICALLY CALL OUT OTHER JOURNALISTS”. It is understood that this code protects ALL journalists. If you don’t go after them, then no one will go after you. This way everybody gets protected. Even Anne Coulter. Call it employment survival. The problem? The field of sports journalism never rids itself of its “rogue cops”, never has santions, and never throw penalty flags for illegal use of the pens. In fact, it REWARDS them. Just ask Jason Whitlock, Jay Mariotti, or the scores of colleagues who refuse to specifically call them out.

The media response to Sean Taylor’s murder marked a new low in sports journalism, and there is some small evidence that mainstream might be reaching “a tipping point”. Many bloggers and fans have expressed their disgust for some time, but now some voices are starting to come from within. And the message seems to be this: ENOUGH is ENOUGH! Whether it be Barry Bonds, Isiah Thomas, Sean Taylor or others, some mainstream writers are stepping up to the plate.