Controversy at KFAN

On Wednesday evening Dan Barreiro, a radio host at KFAN, found himself in an unexpected situation. After a full season of refusing the media at every turn, superstar wide receiver Randy Moss finally agreed to do an interview. If Moss had any delusions of smoothing the waters with the local media, he was in for a rude awakening.

The interview came about while head coach Mike Tice was visiting with Barreiro during their weekly scheduled interview. When the majority of the questions revolved around Moss' decision to walk off the field with two seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, the two invited Randy to call in and answer the questions for himself. Evidently Tice hasn't been around long enough to realize that this is about as smart as inviting Jessica Simpson to sing for herself.

Moss did call the show and a thirteen-minute interview followed. During the interview, the tone evolved from tense to insulting and ended with a lot more questions asked than answered. Tice wanted to talk football and Barreiro wanted to talk about the end of the Washington game. But Randy wanted to talk about the local media. And if there's one thing we've learned during Moss' eight years in Minnesota, it's that what Randy wants, Randy gets.

Moss takes issue with the local media because he says they bash him every chance they get. They focus on the negative, fail to report the positive and spin his quotes to fit what they want him to say. At least, that's Moss' perspective. Barreiro says the media is more "real" than Moss will ever be since they aren't cheerleaders or apologists for the Vikings poor play. As usual, the truth falls somewhere in the middle.

On one hand, Moss has a point. The media sells newspapers and boosts their ratings through controversy. People claim to hate when all the news is negative. They threaten boycotts and plead with reporters to cover positive stories, saying everyone will read, watch or listen more if the media will just quit with the negativity. But that isn't the truth.

What actually happens is that people get the news from the medium of their choice, then complain about how negative it is and how they wish it could be more positive. But when the time comes to get the news from whatever method they choose, they go straight for the controversial section first. As much as people hate to admit it, controversy sells. They just can't help themselves.

The result of this from Randy Moss' point of view is that media outlets such as KFAN radio focus on his controversial words and actions, of which there is no short supply. Randy construes it as attacking and unfairly biased, and his argument does have some merit. But there are always two sides to every story.

The vast majority of professional athletes follow the rules set by the team as well as those set by local law enforcement. Moss has disregarded both. It isn't an everyday occurrence, as the media sometimes suggest. Most of the time, Moss also follows the rules and behaves like a civilized professional. But when he screws up, he really screws up.

Who else could run over a traffic cop, get caught with marijuana, say he plays when he wants to play and leave his team during a game and have no real ramifications? Moss is alone in how he disregards the rules as well as his ability to escape the situation unscathed. Listening to his interview, it became obvious that Moss is bitter, disillusioned and most of all ridiculously stupid.

He can't put a complete thought together without contradicting himself several times over. He thinks the media is supposed to be there as a support system for the team rather than an objective reporter of the news. He has no grasp of how average people live or the significance of his words and actions. Quite simply, his is immature. Fortunately for him, he can catch the football.