As sports fans, we are programed to be reactionary. We cheer when our team scores a touchdown, hits a homerun or drains a big three. We don’t wait to see if that single that our team just hit will set up an inning-ending double play, we just cheer. I suppose it’s only natural, then, that we react the same way to injuries. In this year’s NFC Championship Game, we saw this trait at its worst.
By now everyone knows the story, but just in case you don’t, here’s the short version: Bears quarterback Jay Cutler was sacked hard (surprising, I know) in the first half. He got up a little hobbled but continued to play.
Cutler left for the locker room a few minutes before half time to – assumedly – be evaluated by team doctors. Cutler came back out in the second half and attempted to play, and after one three-and-out possession (all three hand-offs to the running back), he left the game and never returned.
In the week since the game, the decision not to return to what was undoubtedly the biggest game of his life has been scrutinized over and over again, as has his demeanor after leaving the game. “Scrutinized” being the very epitome of a euphemism in this case, as “lambasted” or “verbally slaughtered” are likely more just descriptions.
What we didn’t find out until the next day is that Cutler had actually torn his MCL, the ligament that keeps the kneecap in place, in his right leg.
I suppose, given the immediate reactionary mindset of sports fans, it’s hard to criticize their reaction.
What can – and should – be criticized, however, is the reaction by the media. In the hours following the Packers 21-14 victory over the Bears in the NFC championship Game, every corner of the sports media was filled with fans and commentators questioning Cutler’s fortitude; before the full story on his injury ever broke.
Journalism 101, at any school worth its weight, will teach you that you do not publish a story unless you have done the research; and the vast majority of media outlets didn’t do their homework, they reacted just like the fans – and that’s unacceptable.
The role of the media is not to be just another drunk, belligerent fan sitting and yelling at their TV when something unfavorable happens. The role of the media is to inform, to be where the public can’t, and talk to those who the public cant.
In this case, that means talking to team doctors and teammates to get the full story of what really happened on the sidelines that afternoon. That means talking to specialists who understand the capabilities of a person with an MCL tear (like, say, the difference between walking “briskly” through a mall and throwing a pass in an NFL game or running away from Clay Matthews and the rest of the Green Bay defense at full speed).
But the vast majority of media didn’t do that. They simply fanned the flames and watched them grow into a blazing inferno.
