Why Sports Reporters Are (Really) Mad at Marshawn Lynch

"I'm just here so I won't get fined." The reason Marshawn Lynch gave for showing up to Super Bowl Media Day is, if we're being honest, the reason most of us do anything at our places of employment—we're trying to stay out of trouble. Who can't relate? It's why Lynch has become a populist icon for so many while also serving as a rage-beacon.

The source of the white-hot takes directed at Lynch's populism come not from legions of fans, but from mainstream sportswriters. The National Sports Journalism Center's Ed Sherman called for sportswriters to boycott Skittles, a sponsor of Lynch. The New York Post's Bart Hubbuch spent Wednesday and Thursday calling Lynch stupid and illiterate on Twitter. The Philadelphia Daily News's Marcus Hayes questioned Lynch's professionalism and adulthood. The St. Paul Pioneer Press's Brian Murphy even went so far as to claim that without him and his media brethren, Lynch and the rest of the NFL's labor force would be working for the minimum wage. At no point did Murphy stop to seriously consider the vice versa—how much he'd be making if not for Lynch and his peers.

Clearly, sports writers are mad at Lynch, but they're not mad because his laconic public comments have kept them from doing their jobs. To the contrary, Lynch's refusal to engage at press conferences has been a wellspring of #content and copy over the past two years. What, then, are they so angry about?

UCLA sociologist Dr. Harry Edwards wrote of the dual roles the sports reporter must fill. From his 1973 work Sociology of Sport: "As a journalist, the sports reporter is bound by professional ethics to strive for objectivity. As a sports reporter, however, his role demands that he portray the activities of groups and individuals involved in sport at a primary level as conforming to the ideal values of society." While some sportswriters have defied the media monolith and sided with Lynch, there is, obviously, a sizable faction lashing out at him, and they tend to fit neatly into Edwards's definition of the role of sports reporter.

Along with discipline, character, and leadership, respect is one of the key values sports advocates claim is passed on through participation in athletics. Criticism of Lynch centers around respect. Lynch lacks respect for the media, for the NFL, for his duty, and even for himself. By regularly asserting this supposed disrespect and still dominating on the football field, Lynch puts the sports reporter attempting to fulfill their role in a tough spot. How can the sports reporter reconcile the combination of Lynch's success and lack of respect with, for instance, General Douglas MacArthur's claim that sport is "a vital character builder" and "teaches [athletes] to be proud and unbending in honest defeat, but humble and gentle in victory"? Or former USC athletic director Jess Hill's claim: "An athlete learns a sense of loyalty and a respect for discipline"? Or any other platitude filled with clichés ripped from the walls of your local high school's locker room?

This happens in part because many sportswriters, whether they came to the craft after a professional career or merely played little league or pickup games as children, have experience with and believe in the American sports system. They have seen the character building and educational side of sports, and believe in what these values can do for the younger generations. These beliefs aren't necessarily unfounded. Sports at their finest are often a celebration of what resiliency and a strong work ethic can accomplish.

Rather, the unflinching belief within the establishment in the ability of sports to build character and foster respect is, as Edwards writes, "one-sided and highly selective." It is also one of the primary selling points of sports, whether targeted at the fan at large, or to the parent deciding which extra-curricular activity their child should participate in, or the politician deciding how much public money to appropriate for a new stadium.

And lest we forget, selling sports was the entire reason the sporting press came into existence in the first place. As John Thorn writes in Baseball in the Garden of Eden, "Emulating the practice of traveling circuses and vagabond theater troupes, which, rather than pay for newsprint advertising, employed press agents to plant manufactured stories, [Chicago White Stockings owner and National League founder William] Hulbert found his mouthpiece, by what route we cannot reconstruct, in Chicago Tribune reporter Lewis Meacham." Meacham sold Hulbert's National League as a paradise free of the gambling, alcohol, and corruption that plagued its predecessor, the National Association, and was a critical player in the National League's rise as baseball's biggest major league in the late 1800s.

Sports media has evolved into something much larger in the 140 years since, but its relationship with the sports establishment remains similar. The sports reporter cannot work without access, and teams and leagues are willing to withhold credentials and sources from those who would tarnish the brand, and in extreme situations, have even lobbied for the firing of reporters deemed too dangerous. It remains the sports reporter's job to sell the teams and players as societal success stories, as symbols of what can be when we follow all the rules and best practices.

Marshawn Lynch blows that all up. He runs for a touchdown and downs Skittles on the sideline. He runs for 157 yards in the NFC Championship game and gives the same non-answer 29 times on Media Day. He is a force for good within his community, and he is a black athlete who refuses to submit to the demands of a largely white media. In the world of the sports reporter, Marshawn Lynch is a massive, walking contradiction, and they cannot abide someone finding success and acclaim while transgressing against their philosophical pillars.

And so the sports reporters are mad, because Marshawn Lynch makes it hard for them to do their jobs. But that's OK, because not all jobs are worth doing.