As this Ines Sainz story starts to spiral out of control it has put the spotlight back on females reporters in the locker room.
The simple issue is that at all times people should be professional men, women, avatars or Sam Cassell it doesn’t matter.
It is a place of business and there are laws in place to protect employees from harassment.
I want to make one point crystal clear I don’t care how Ines Sainz became a “journalist”. I don’t care what she wears or how she does her reporting.
The only thing I ask is that you be consistent with who you are. If your brand of reporting is a “sex sells” brand then own up to it. You can’t be a Kardashian one day, but then once it is brought to your attention what an organization was doing could be considered harassment be Mother Teresa.
Regardless of what Miss Sainz was wearing or doing in the Jets Locker Room that does not excuse the Jets behavior, but I will not paint her as a victim because the type of behavior the Jets were doing she has marketed and profited from for years.
The facts are the Jets were acting inappropriately which should be looked into and Miss Sainz had no issues with that behavior until it became beneficial to her to act innocent.
This brings us to Clinton Portis who has an opinion on the matter. Here is what he had to say.
“You know man, I think you put women reporters in the locker room in positions to see guys walking around naked, and you sit in the locker room with 53 guys, and all of the sudden you see a nice woman in the locker room, I think men are gonna tend to turn and look and want to say something to that woman …
“And I mean, you put a woman and you give her a choice of 53 athletes, somebody got to be appealing to her. You know, somebody has to spark her interest, or she’s gonna want somebody. I don’t know what kind of woman won’t, if you get to go and look at 53 men’s packages.”
According to Portis any woman around “53 packages” can’t help but want someone.
In Portis’ mind no female can do her job appropriately without wanting someone in the locker room.
Regardless if you think that is true or not (I don’t) that is an awful stereotype to put on any group of women
I know many legit, hard working female reporters who could care less about the “packages” and much more about getting the story.
These women don’t look like “Precious”, but they are professional and serious about what they do.
In essence Portis is calling them all groupies.
There maybe some that are, but lumping them all together is unfair.
The point is simple like I said before everyone should be professional.
So I am giving the whole media industry a:
SMARTEN UP NAS
*UPDATE*
Portis has issued an apology:
“I was wrong to make the comments I did, and I apologize,” Portis said in a statement issued by the team. “I respect the job that all reporters do. It is a tough job and we all have to work and act in a professional manner. I understand and support the team on these issues.”
That was very nice, even if he didn’t mean it.