Don't Shoot The Messenger, Even If He Calls You Names

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday April 23, 2005

Richard Hinds

Things haven't been going well at your broking firm. Two of your best traders are on secondment to the New York office and refuse to come back. A couple of board members who have never traded so much as a swap card are breathing down your neck. And after announcing disappointing dividends at the annual general meeting, you are booed off the stage by shareholders.

Now the press have gotten a sniff that things aren't exactly bullish. Some armchair MBA in the business section is calling for your head and one of the kids came home from school in tears after his mates teased him about that idiotic cartoon in the Financial Review.

Then, against all reasonable expectations, the All Ords sinks lower than the world pygmy limbo champion, and the ink-stained wretches and microphone-wielding assassins confront you. The same people who have been composing your obituaries are all smiles and false bonhomie. "Tough day's trading, hey, Gordan?"; "Don't think you should have sold much sooner?"; "Surely heads have to roll this week, don't they?"

Because you are very well paid to be a thorough professional in all circumstances, you suppress your anger and frustration. You explain the very good reasons why you held onto a stack of shares that is now worth as much as a scratched Casey Donovan CD. You point to the long-term strategy. You say that, although it might be a cliche, the market really is a "week-to-week proposition".

Then you walk away knowing your oh-so-friendly inquisitors are about to charge to their laptops and studios and bury you beneath an avalanche of second-guessing critiques, under graduate word play and mischievously edited sound bites.

And now you know what it is like to be a high-profile football coach.

Of course, if you were Footeroos coach Frank Farina, you might have responded differently. You might have lost your head and done something to a reporter you later - maybe a bit too much later - regretted. But under the circumstances, wasn't it just human nature?

This week Farina and SBS reporter Andrew Orsatti exchanged apologies about their confrontation after the match against Iraq. Farina said he shouldn't have done whatever it was he did to Orsatti that prompted a police investigation. Orsatti said he also should have acted differently. And everything is happy again in the land of Les Murray.

But while this might have seemed an isolated spat involving a sometimes hot-headed coach and a member of the often self-absorbed media, it was also a consequence of the increasingly tense relationship between coaches, players, officials and the media in many sports. The only difference was that, unlike the times reporters have been punched, pushed up against lockers, verbally abused and, in one case, dunked in a hot tub, this made the papers.

And, before the violins start playing, this is not a defence of we puny reporters whose barbed criticism, second-guessing and, occasionally, even reasonable analysis have attracted the ire of more physically robust coaches. On the contrary, given the current dynamic, I think it's surprising more reporters don't find themselves in hot tubs - and more coaches don't find themselves in hot water for overreacting to criticism.

Part of that change has to do with the almost obsessive coverage of some sports. The competition between newspapers, television and radio to break stories - or offer heavy-handed opinion - has created a stampede. Everyone wants to be the first to sack, to drop, to suspend, to censure.

Thus the performance of coaches, players, even club doctors, is under huge scrutiny. At the same time, with access to locker rooms now restricted by PR guardians, the human factor has been lost. When we criticise an athlete, a coach or even a referee, we usually forget we are criticising a person, perhaps because we rarely see their human side.

What the most thin-skinned coaches forget is that the straightforward, ignorant or downright mischievous questions asked by reporters are usually watered-down versions of the tougher questions being asked by the fans - and their own employers. They also forget that, despite their massive profiles and strong personalities, there is no white smoke when a coach is appointed. They might have the undivided attention and loyalty of their players but elsewhere they are not considered infallible.

The consequence is a tense, often unhealthy relationship. Maybe both the interrogators and the interrogated should lighten up a bit and realise things could be worse. We could be stockbrokers.

© 2005 Sydney Morning Herald

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