The Cubs Chronicle

Gary Thorne has a column on USAToday.com in which he discusses the recent kerfuffle over Chip Caray’s and Steve Stone’s sometimes criticism of the Cubs’ play, which resulted in them receiving some heat from some of the Cubs (most notably Moises Alou and Kent Mercker), including their attempt to kick the announcers off the team plane. Thorne thinks the episode is symptomatic of a move toward removing the objectivity of team announcers:

For those who think there ought to be some substance and objectivity in the mediawhen covering sports, it has only gotten worse.
. . . .
Team broadcasters, once hired by the media outlets to be fair and impartial in their coverage, find themselves working for teams owned by the media outlets. The issue of broadcasters cheerleading in the booth for “your” team simmers.

When the players don’t like what they — or more likely what their wives — hear they complain publicly or to team officials. The broadcasters are caught in the middle with little support from the people for whom they work.

Thorne misses something in his analysis: Chip & Steve were not criticizing the Cubs’ play as “objective” journalists, but were criticizing them as biased journalists. That is, as fan-journalists. We know this because Chip & Steve have never purported to be objective observers. Instead, they cheer when things go good. They root for things to go well. There’s a disappointment in their voice and commentary when things go poorly. (They’re not exactly Ron Santo in that regard. But then again, no one is.) And that has been the circumstance under which Chip & Steve (and before that Harry & Steve) have broadcasted for a long time, not just recently.

In other words, Thorne is lamenting the attempted stifling of something that doesn’t exist anyway.

But this is just an intro into Thorne’s main lament, with Barry Bonds as the antagonist: Players trying to control what is written and spoken about them by limiting the media’s access to them. Thorne thinks that is downright an affront to liberty:

While the players have a right to do whatever business they wish over the Internet, all professional sports should require players be available to the press to deal with real issues and everyday stories.Athletes are public figures and the free press has a right to question them, even if the response is “no comment.”

This overstates the right of the free press. The press’s freedom doesn’t come at the expense of personal freedom. While the media has a right to ask questions (and write and speak what they want within the bounds of truth), they don’t have the right of access to people who do not want to answer—or even listen—to those questions. (Thorne, as a former lawyer, should know this.) Of course, teams could require as a condition of employment that players make themselves available to the media while in the clubhouse, within the bounds of the player’s employment contract and the collective bargaining agreement, but that is a policy matter, not a constitutional one. Thorne can argue that Bonds should make himself available to the media, but it is an illegitimate argument that Bonds must make himself available.