How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways…

Is the Chicago media “slanted” towards the Cubs, as White Sox Fan is fond of alleging every time he opens his mouth?

Here’s one example of many where Mike Downey shows which way he slants, along with a glimpse into what your press corps finds important:

Inside the park, the Cubs, in their continuing effort to treat the media like dirt despite the team being owned by a media company, hold Baker’s farewell and Hendry’s Q & A inside that suffocating, dehumanizing hell hole of an interview room of theirs that makes the Abu Ghraib prison look like a Ritz-Carlton.

An official statement from the team is distributed to the 50 or so individuals cramped together shoulder-to-shoulder in this sorry excuse for a room that is disgrace to the good name of Major League Baseball.

Hey you two – get a room!

A few more snide comments about Baker, a few non-insightful comments about the Proven Managers™ rumored to be in the running, and Downey calls it a day. But at the end of that day, the over-arching theme of Downey’s “analysis” isn’t a pithy recap of Baker’s tenure, or the state of the team now, or an inquiry into which direction Hendry will go.

Instead, we’re left with Downey’s petulance that an old, cramped, crowded ballpark has an old, cramped, and crowded media room. And that’s what’s really important to the punditocracy – their own comfort. Teams (and players) that accommodate them will receive reciprocal treatment. Teams (and players) with the temerity to not lavish them with posh interview rooms or sound bites do so at their own peril.

One other thing: Downey might want to avoid comparing his lot in life with Abu Ghraib. Is an hour in a crowded, uncomfortable room really analogous to a living embodiment of the erosion of American values?