Cam Newton thinks female reporter talking routes is 'funny'

Please. That Cam Newton moment is quite useful. Says plenty about him.

 

Sigh. It's not a rights debate. Curry has the right to go up there and answer questions with multiple belches and fart noises. Nobody's talking about Steph Curry's fuckin free will. We're talking about whether a thing is professional or unprofessional - whether it receives criticism or not.

And I know I'm swimming upstream here. We live in a celebrity culture where ordinary reporters need to properly genuflect in the presence of an athlete or, if they're going to critique them, couch in a 1,350-word personal essay exploring the complex duality of emotions. Otherwise, they run the risk of not getting it or, even worse, getting sidetracked into a debate about personal sovereignty. I'm gonna lecture you on the primacy of perspective.

 

I went back and looked it up. This is the Q&A that Steph Curry's daughter had the temerity to be mildly disruptive during:

Q: Can you describe the mood before the doors opened up and everybody came in when it was just you guys? Was there much celebrating going on?

A: It was special, I think, because everybody was kind of enjoying the moment. We wanted to appreciate the moment, not take it for granted because it was something that we've been waiting for and wanted to close out tonight, but you kind of take it for what it is because you have four more wins and you don't want to get too ahead of yourself. We're going to appreciate what we've done because we've got to be proud of winning the Western Conference. That was tough all year long, and we're excited about the next step.

And, these "press conferences" are full of meaningless pap like this. "Were you happy you won the game?" "Yes."

Hard-hitting, important stuff there.

 

Alma's still going to the mat over that one? Sheesh.

 

Saying something is unprofessional - which it was - is hardly going to the mat.

I'm not the one going back and looking up the quality of questions - which, again, has nothing to do with anything. It says something when the counterargument to "it's unprofessional" is a "he owes you nothing!" line. Nobody owes anyone anything in this life, really, do they? We could end most threads that way. Wouldn't be much of a site.

 

Don't let the nihilists get ya down, @Alma!

 

It has EVERYTHING to do with the "usefulness" of press conferences, which is all I'm arguing.

 

The utility of the post-game press conference is pretty obvious. It's to get decent audio and video of the stars. It allows the team to moderate; good luck doing that around a locker.

 

Pregame press conferences are promotional contrivances by definition. Teams obligate players to appear even though, typically, they are the last things to which players want to subject themselves. So stuff like this will keep happening when athletes doesn’t feel like playing along, and Alma and others can keep making judgements about whether athletes forced to indulge them exhibit sufficient professionalism to satisfy their sensibilities. It’s all pretty dumb.

 

These guys play children's games for a living. The whole thing is pretty dumb, but we're all party to it. So why be a party-pooper? What, you're above it? (I don't mean you personally.) It's not a whole helluva lot to ask of players to stand at a podium a few times a week and just talk. There's plenty of shit I don't like to do at my job, clients I have to work with. It comes with the territory. It's being professional and an adult. I doubt Cam Newton will always be a dickhead. Who knows, he might outgrow it.

 

Audio of them giving mundane answers to pointless questions. And video of them sitting at a table or standing at a podium.

 

They are world-class athletes who drive a $13 billion industry and it’s the height of silliness to compare their job expectations with yours. You have a tiny fraction of their leverage and you bring a tiny fraction of their value to your organization. Maybe the Panthers should suspend Newton? Or cut him? Or put him on the overnight desk? That would show him, right?