Peoria Pundit

No it’s NOT me. It’s Mike Nadel. Since GateHouse Media sent him on a permanent vacation back on January 15, the “Baldest Truth” columnist has been blogging up a storm. He has some pretty damn good insights on the steroid mess, if you want to check it out.

And he’s a Libra.

I’m not much of a fan of sports columnist Mike Nadel. So I didn’t read the column in question when it first appeared. I’m not surprised there would be a reaction:

Earlier this week, Peoria Journal Star columnist Mike Nadel wrote that ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews dressed and acted like a “sexpot” in the Chicago Cubs clubhouse, and the world — sports fans, journalists, the blogosphere and beyond — has responded in force.

The ensuing firestorm has spurred columns calling Nadel “reckless, in search of cheap fame, a caveman, resentful of women, crusty and out of touch.”

It has also elicited columns backing Nadel, like one from Chicago Tribune sports columnist Teddy Greenstein that quotes FSN Wisconsin’s Trenni Kusnierek as saying Andrews’ dress and conduct damaged “an entire gender.”

First, Nadel technically isn’t a columnist for the Peoria Journal Star. He writes for GateHouse News Service, and the Journal Star picks up his column about Chicago sports teams.

Among Nadel’s critics is Chicago Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti, who is himself almost universally loathed by athletes and sports reporters alike for being lazy, a blowhard and refusal to face criticism. Mariotti wrote that Nadel’s column was, among other things, an example of an anti-ESPN attitude among sports media.

Feh. Mariotti is a paid contributor to ESPN. And it’s hardly a secret that ESPN and other cable sports outlets make a habit of hiring young, attractive women. It just might have something to do with the fact that their audience tends to be young a male.

What Nadel observed isn’t just that Erin Andrews is an attractive woman. The fact that television reporters — male and female — are very often attractive people is an observation not unique to Nadel.

What he observed was that she dressed a bit more provocatively than one should inside a locker room. He observed that she flirted with the athletes. He observed that the players were ogling her and making comments among themselves.

Her later statement that she thinks the athletes treat her like a sister is naive.

If Erin Andrews wants to be taken seriously, she needs to act like it. Male sports reporters aren’t taken seriously when they act like fanboys. Female reporters who act like giggly groupies also aren’t respected. The problem with Andrews isn’t that she’s an attractive female who isn’t being taken seriously. The problem is that she needs to grow up. THEN she will be taken seriously.

UPDATE: Never let it be said that I will allow the quality of this blog to slip. Here is the a photograph of Erin Andrews taken at the ballpark on the day Nadel writes about:

Short skirt? Check. Low-cut neckline? Check. Inappropriate? That is up to her bosses. Her behavior? Nadel says one thing. She says another.

My take is this: Nadel didn’t sound like a caveman, or a prude. He was writing about what he perceived. A  journalist — whose skills he never questioned — was behaving in a way he didn’t think was appropriate nor necessary for her to do her job. He wasn’t criticizing her for being too atractive, but for behavior and dress that were entirely under her control.