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So it seems that a Missouri Senator, Josh Hawley (R), wrote a letter (recently I guess) to NBA commissioner Adam Silver criticizing the league over its cozy and complicated relationship with China. Y'all
may recall that when the Houston Rockets owner expressed support for Hong Kong demonstrators back in October, China leaned on the league by canceling planned exhibition games there while the league
leaned on said owner to walk back his statements.
Now without without seeing the specific contents of the Senator's letter to Silver I'm not prepared to choose sides here (although the league absolutely caved to the Chinese government's denial of rights
and speech freedoms in HK), the part I do find interesting is that ESPN's lead NBA reporter, Adrian Wojnarowski, felt moved to respond to the Senator with a brief two word opinion on his letter: "Fuck You".
'Woj' (his obvious and necessary nickname) and network brass themselves have both now apologized for the response citing the unprofessional nature of it, etc.
So while all this is somewhat interesting to this non-basketball fan, here's my main interest in this whole story: Forget the tenor of the response, the more interesting question is why this reporter feels like
it's his duty to speak up for the league rather than just covering it? It's kind of a rhetorical question because I know what the answer is. The NBA is ESPN property and is treated essentially as the house
league around the halls of Bristol, CT. So it's not surprising that Woj feels (or maybe even is told) that his job description isn't just one of covering the league but cheerleading for it as well. I tended to
view that sort of shill coverage more endemic to college sports than pro but those lines of being blurred as well.
And look, if Wojnarowski wants to make the case that criticism of league actions over its handling of their interactions involving China last October is unwarranted then go right ahead. But his first reaction
to something so radical as a written letter was akin to saying that the mere act of criticizing, and maybe even questioning, the league that constitutes his sports beat isn't allowed on his watch and said
letter writer deserves strong condemnation that is both personal and public, obscenities included.
Wow!
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