National Sports Journalism Center

"Let's say you've just finished a brutal day at work," Dan Le Batard writes, adding, "You come out of your cubicle and are immediately met by someone asking you questions about how and why you failed. This person doesn't put in your hours and isn't nearly as informed about your job as you are, but he gets paid to question you every day inside the TV, the radio, the newspaper. And, armed with the day's results, he always gets to look right about how you do your job without taking your risks or suffering your consequences. That's the questioner's job — to question you. How annoying do you think that would get? `What I have learned in 11 years in the sports business is that the dumbest guys in the room are always the media guys,' Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban wrote on his blog recently. `Listening to the media only increases your odds of failing at whatever you are doing.' This candor is rare in sports these days and fear is the reason. Fear for your job, fear of becoming the face and voice attached to a news cycle's issue of the day, fear of picking an unwinnable fight with a media beast that has you outnumbered. That's why so many of the answers in sports, too many, are droning clichés. Being real isn't worth the hassle." || Also, as Richard Deitsch notes on Twitter, there's a discussion of this story taking place on sportsjournalists.com.