The Courier Mail is a bumfuck provincial newspaper with a sports section that needs to fill 20,000 words (at least) a week on the local rugby league team. It has a complicated relationship with the club due to its shared ownership. Its reporters dutifully attend all their press conferences where they wheel out some barely coherent kids. Most who struggled with finishing high school. These kids, like politicians, are trained to not speak in anything but hollow platitudes. They're nervous and not masters of this art. The coach is always asked the questions they can turn into a story, because readers want "news" and "colour" not platitudes. It's hard for a coach to answer questions about why his team is losing without badmouthing his players, a cardinal sin.
Everyone gets pissed off when their words are turned into a context that wasn't in their head. That's media 101. Inevitably the more you face the press, the more you try to play the game. Some use charm. Some get bitter. Some give smartarse answers that almost always backfire. Never go down this route.
Bennett tried the Joh Bjelke Peterson model of "feeding the chooks." His success as a coach and his fatherly relationship with his players garnered him respect, but he didn't give the media anything to work with. They could see his charm, but they couldn't reflect it in print.
Walters is no orator, but the press see his heart on his sleeve, and understand he has to watch his words. They know he's out of his comfort zone, and so far they like him.
Covering sport isn't a prestige job in journalism, but if it's your interest it can be a rewarding career path. I've always thought of sport as a job for a cub reporter to learn the ropes. Guys like Badel are bread and butter writers. You ask for 2,000 words to fill space. You get it by the deadline. He's a professional. When you're trying to find copy, the content isn't always the priority.
