It didn’t take long for the clip to go viral yesterday. For those who may have missed it, here’s the footage of Edmonton Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl and reporter Jim Matheson having a testy exchange:
The back and forth wasn’t exactly a great look for either party involved, but is far from uncommon in sports. There have been far worse examples of media availability or interviews gone wrong over the years (who can forget the infamous Jim Rome v. Jim Everett interview in 1994?) so this was relatively tame in comparison.
It hasn’t, however, stopped players, media, and fans alike from weighing in on the matter in an attempt to paint either Draisaitl or Matheson as being “in the wrong” in this particular incident.
Some rushed to stick up for Matheson:
Others believed Draisaitl handled the exchange as best he could:
Wherever you fall on that spectrum, the fact that this became as divisive as it did, with fellow journalists rushing to defend Matheson and players siding with Draisaitl shows where we are in terms of player/journalist relationships at the moment. That being said, the only arguments for why Matheson was “in the right” in this instance essentially boil down to:
i) He’s been covering the Oilers since before Draisaitl was born
ii) He was inducted into the HHOF in 2000 as a media honoree
iii) He was “just doing his job”
None of which are particularly strong cases.
How long someone’s been in a particular role shouldn’t give them carte blanche to say or do whatever they please, but it’s being used as an excuse in this case. Could you imagine how quickly the reporter’s credentials would have been pulled had that been someone who was new to the role? They would have been banned from any future media scrums before they got to the parking lot. So why does Matheson get a pass because he’s been doing the job for longer?
It’s an oddity that many reporters will defend tooth and nail which doesn’t hold in any other profession. However you view the dynamic at play here (boss/subordinate, co-workers, casual office acquaintances, etc.), if you told someone they were being “pissy” and that you didn’t like their answers, you could bank on a quick drop in from HR in your near future.
If anything I’d make the argument that Matheson’s seniority here actually works against him. With 40+ years of covering professional sports, you’d think by now he’d have learnt that some days players just aren’t going to give you the soundbites you want. Any cub reporter can decipher within the first few scrums who the good quotes are and who’s going to give you 1 sentence canned answers.
Draisaitl has been prickly with the media in the past, so why Matheson thought that after another disappointing loss (and a stretch where the Oilers are 2-6-2 in their last 10) he’d get a Shakespearean level soliloquy out of the German star is completely irrational.
Which brings us to the “just doing his job” argument. Granted, there’s a massive difference in what the media’s role actually is, vs. what fans perceive it should be. The press isn’t there to be “fans” of the team. They’re there to report on what happened, and hold people in positions of power accountable.
However there’s been a massive shift, thanks largely in part to a certain former President, lately in the dichotomy between fans and the media. You could argue that the relationship has shifted from a fervent belief in what’s being reported as factually true, to an outright distrust of many headlines and stories. So while a large portion of those who voiced displeasure over how Matheson handled things were simply piling on, many in the industry viewed his initial query for what it really was: a leading question.
If you’re going to try to use Matheson’s experience as an argument for why he was justified in the exchange, then by that same token he should know better than to phrase his question as he did. “What do you think is the number one reason for the losses now?” puts Draisaitl in a no win situation.
If he refuses to take the bait, he winds up in a situation like what just unfolded. If he answers honestly, he’s essentially throwing someone in the Oilers organization under the bus. Whether it was Matheson’s intent to take his response and spin it as “Draisaitl blames goaltending as reason for slump” or “Oilers not getting enough bottom 6 production says Draisaitl” is irrelevant, because whether he spun it that way or not, someone else listening in the room or streaming it at home would have.
For those wondering why hockey players go from the most boring interviews of any sport while they’re playing, to arguably the best interviews of any athlete after they retire, it’s because of leading questions like that. It’s not as though the NHLPA provides recent retirees with public speaking courses, it’s just that they’re finally able to speak freely without fear of a quote getting taken out of context. In a sport where being a good teammate is held in the highest regard, players are conditioned to become robotic in their answers when there’s potential to generate negative publicity.
This is why you get so many “pucks in deep”, “need a full team effort” and “gotta battle hard” canned responses. Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers.
So if you’re going to try to grab a soundbite (which unfortunately is largely what many aspects of modern media is degrading to), don’t then chastise the player for seeing through it. Matheson and Draisaitl’s back and forth had all the hallmarks of “old man screams at cloud” with the veteran reporter talking to the player as though he was his smart mouthed teenage son.
“Just doing his job” is all well and good when it’s done in the proper context. Pressing the federal or provincial government about their pandemic plans is good. Getting answers out of leaders during war time is good. Hold their feet to the fire, people’s lives are at stake here. What Matheson was doing was covering a regular season game in mid January, not chronicling the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
Frankly, more people need to be “doing their job” with how they cover politicians of late if this week’s Doug Ford shovel/driving controversy is any indication of how the media is conducting business as usual.
Ultimately neither party came out of this smelling like roses. And the fact that it made national headlines likely shows what a slow news day it was to begin with. In normal times, Matheson and Draisaitl would likely resolve their differences with a 1on1 conversation in the locker room or over a beer. But I have no idea what the COVID equivalent of that is for today’s day in age.
If people want to try to argue that Matheson was in the right here, more power to you, I’m all ears. But to date I have yet to hear one compelling reason why he would be.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner