Thanks for sharing that, Mud. The guy is right in that the media generally plays an important role in moving public figures and institutions to action. Would we have had a Watergate without an active media? Nope. Would Bobby Knight have been fired without the media persistently documenting his every failing? Nope. Would we have had many other high-profile issues uncovered and discussed without media attention? Nope.

When it comes to sports, the media rarely takes this part of their job seriously. Sure, we might have the occasional talk show host or columnist waxing about it, but a week from now, they will be on to something else. With Northwestern, what we need now is detailed documentation in the daily newspapers of how Northwestern might be the worst basketball program in America. We need media people calling up the college president and asking him directly and repeatedly why he accepts mediocrity. It's not going to happen though. It rarely does.

Similarly, I've been waiting for years for media to take on the issue of lousy officiating. We all have short memories and while a game is going on we remember the 5 missed calls in a typical NFL game or the 15 missed calls in a typical college hoops game that in many cases decide the games. Yet after the next day's teeth gnashing, the media's ADD nature moves them on to something else. And all the while, conferences like the BIg Ten continue to train and evaluate their officials with the most arcane methods you can imagine.

Whether it be Northwestern basketball or lousy training and evaluation of college officials that affects outcomes of games, or a number of other issues, we need the media to be consistent, aggressive, investigative and persistent in their questioning of why things are the way they are. Sadly, the sports media is too often busy dealing with the trivial and the peripheral, rather than the important. So hooray for Mac, Jurko and Harry for their one-day attention span to NU's failures in hoops. Too bad we can't get the media beyond the columnists and talkers so engaged in questioning some of the significant issues in sports... instead of writing redundant articles on how bad a person some 25 year old goof is because he didn't show up for work on time.