Blazers — Let’s move on without further distractions

I don’t want to belabour the Blazers situation, as everyone wants to move on, but there continues to be talk out there that the lifting of the ban against Daily News sports editor Gregg Drinnan isn’t quite what it appears. In other words, there actually were strings attached. To be perfectly clear:

The Daily News has not committed to “provide more fair and balanced reporting.” Our position was and is that fair and balanced reporting is already the case, therefore there’s nothing to change. We committed to “continue” fair and balanced reporting of the Blazers, specifying that does not imply any change, or any direction to Gregg.

We did not commit to providing coverage “similar to what (the league) currently receives in other WHL markets.” I don’t know what kind of coverage other WHL markets receive, but I do know that Gregg Drinnan is the most knowledgable writer around when it comes to the WHL, and that he provides quality coverage.

We did not commit to “take necessary steps” to address this matter. We do believe the Blazers organization, its fans and the community are better without the implementation of counter-productive attempts to manage the media. The “resolution” of the disagreement was to remove the ban.

The normalization of relations between local media (for the ban on Drinnan swept all local media into the fray) and the Blazers needs to move forward in an atmosphere of clarity and transparency, and I sincerely hope we can do that without unnecessary distractions.