Phil B: Fooled us too
Several members of the media reported that Caldwell would be retained while others merely said it was their opinion. Some told us they thought he would be fired. Yet no one was certain of the outcome until Jim Irsay pointed us to the Colts website which announced the news.
That secrecy impressed Phillip B. Wilson even if some in the media were caught off-guard:
So we tell people what we think. Not always what we know or what we think we know if the source is shaky. Thinking isn’t enough. We need sources who are credible to stick our necks out there. Someone says something, but if we aren’t sure it’s legit, well, we can’t just run with it and work on the 60-point bold headline. Not lifting us up compared to others in the media, but we walk the fine line of how news is reported and we do have higher standards than most when it comes to sourcing.
That’s why I’m surprised about today. It’s probably the first time since I’ve been around here in 11 years that every indication pointed one direction on something major, then we found out the opposite. Heck, even when the Polians were fired, we had a hunch on that about 24 hours prior to Irsay making that call.
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Bottom line is that the new agencies are so common, and they're fighting with each other so much, that there's not much journalistic integrity anymore. The idea that you should wait on a story until there's some credible evidence that your lead is valid is so 1970's. We're all aware of a particular Colts blog that posts both sides of the same story, emphatically, and then celebrates when one of those postings turns out to be accurate (surprise!).
What Phil B and Kravitz and all of those should do is act like real investigative journalists who don't just pump out stories and twitter tidbits thru a firehose at us. Again, I find it a LOT less useful and more painful to live thru a bevy of inaccurate tweets and stories than to painfully wait for a legitimate lead.
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So I guess the local media guys are happy with being out of the loop, as long as someone else isn't inside of it.
@thejoshbaker I think they respect the secrecy when it's important to the team's success. They're much happier with it when they're treated with respect and dignity while doing so.
What they hated was Polian's secrecy about seemingly unimportant items as well as his willingness to talk to national media rather than them about items.
