Starting a new ongoing series of indefinite length looking at sports journalism in the age of COVID-19.
First off, a Tweet from Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Les Bowen after the Eagles’ loss on Sunday:
One of the obstacles to really getting at the truth after these games is that you don't get to go around the locker room and seek out people that maybe the team would rather you not talk to.
— Les Bowen (@LesBowen) September 20, 2020
Second, comes several points made by Matthew Fairburn and Joe Buscaglia of The Athletic on The Bills Beat podcast . First, Fairburn and Buscaglia were discussing injuries to several key Bills players in their season-opening victory over the Jets and because the locker rooms are not open (as they were in past years), they had incomplete information.
“We know so much more when we’re in the locker room and able to see these guys, how they’re walking around and stuff and we just don’t have that anymore.” Joe Buscaglia
Fairburn also discussed a story he wrote about how he watched new Bills’ receiver Stefon Diggs.
We were kind of debating leading up to the season whether even being at the game would be worth it, you know, with all these interviews happening over Zoom and everything else, it was like, let’s go to this first game and see what’s what.And my though was, well if I’m gonna be there, I might as well see something I can’t see on TV and I thought, Bills fans are probably missing most the ability to watch a guy like Stefon Diggs everywhere he goes