Lane Kiffin and The Media

September 15, 2012; Stanford, CA, USA; Southern California Trojans head coach Lane Kiffin adjusts his headset during the third quarter against the Stanford Cardinal at Stanford Stadium. The Cardinal defeated the Trojans 21-14. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-US PRESSWIRELess than a week after USC lost to Pac-12 rival Stanford, Lane Kiffin’s huffy refusal to address reporters after one media member committed the cardinal (no pun intended) sin of asking about injuries exacerbates questions of the program’s championship readiness. You can watch the video here. There’s also a deeper discussion to be had about the sometimes contentious but ultimately necessary relationship that exists between athletics and media.

Narratives quickly switched after Saturday’s 21-14 decision from can anyone beat the Trojans? to will anyone beat them again? You’ve probably been reminded at some point in the last few days that the 2003 Trojans were tripped up at Cal before winning a share of the national title.

There might not be such a Keep Calm & Carry On approach in Heritage Hall. The tight-fisted focus on what’s been reported out of practice has come off almost paranoid a few times recently. Depth is an issue for USC, and any information opponents can extract to that end is treated as a tide-turning schematic advantage.

Kiffin’s overreaction to a single reporter comes less than a week after USC drew a lot of negative attention from another media flap. The university overstepped its authority when it suspended Scott Wolf of The Los Angeles Daily News for violating – well, nothing really. While Wolf may have circumvented USC’s intended result of restricting injury reports gleaned from practice, he did not break any of the regulations set forth in reporters’ agreements with the athletic department.

Kiffin emphasized doing what he could to aid media’s coverage of the program within the boundaries of USC guidelines. The reporter who asked Kiffin about injuries may have overstepped his bounds, but Kiffin’s overreaction contradicts his previous assertion.

It’s easy to be cooperative when things are going well – perhaps Kiffin’s reaction is different had the Trojans not just jeopardized their title aspirations? It’s also easier to work with media when outlets serve a purpose immediately beneficial to the coach’s end. In Kiffin’s case, he toed the line without crossing it (much like Scott Wolf) when sending a clear message that Silas Redd was welcomed this summer, via the media.

Media gets the broad brush treatment, and that’s certainly the case here. One reporter crosses the agreed upon line, all are punished. The profession is treated as a functioning hive mind; all in it come together to form one entity wielding a powerful sword a la Voltron. There is some validity in that certain narratives get pushed from multiple outlets to create an annoying echo.

However, today’s incident and the Wolf suspension make news because they are out of the ordinary – man bites dog is the popular colloquialism taught to beginning journalists.

The debate then turns to how much coaches owe reporters. There was a show of solidarity for Kiffin last week when his peer and fellow former USC assistant Steve Sarkisian’s Washington team had a similar injury reporting policy implemented. Mike Leach won’t discuss the situation he has at quarterback involving Jeff Tuel and Connor Halliday. There haven’t been retroactive suspensions for infractions of rules not yet on the books in either case, though.

Maybe coaches nationwide can close their doors to all reporters, skip post-game press conferences and use the sports information department exclusively to transmit PR. It might spare a Lane Kiffin some distress. But using the broad brush stroke mindset, all media pulling up stakes doesn’t just mean the ink-stained wretches toiling at dailies, or the web reporters tapping furiously at laptops to publish information that will be obsolete in an hour. If media’s all the same entity, that also means the TV satellite trucks pull away, and the massive contracts that fund seven-figure contracts disappear with them.

Indeed, it’s a fragile coexistence but the two entities need each other.