The moving and emotional press conference Peyton Manning used Monday to say goodbye to a game he helped define became authentic because of its most difficult moment: When a reporter, liberated from sycophancy and doing what journalists should do, asked the right question.
What about those 20-year-old allegations of sexual assault that were regurgitated over the past month?
The reaction was swift and, at times, merciless. Those worthy of respect and those who have none called the question all the predictable things. Selfish. Attention-seeking. Self-righteous. Insensitive. Contemptuous. Lower than scum.
I could keep going, but how many examples of this kind of drivel do we really need? Suffice to say, a lot of people spewed some dumb, hot garbage because a journalist did what we do. We ask the questions you won't, or can't.
The reporter who asked the question, Lindsay Jones, covers the NFL for USA Today. Before that, she covered the Broncos for more than four years for the Denver Post. I don't know her personally. But I do know that I find her work speaks for itself, that she's respected and smart, and that the question she asked Monday had to be asked. It was all the more remarkable because these days it's more and more common for working journalists to let groupthink rule and fear of offending those we cover blunt our candor or courage.
The question had to be asked.
So give me a break on this "time and place" argument, this idea that working reporters are supposed to recalibrate their jobs to celebrate anyone. Get a clue. It's the cowards and followers who have made certain corners of our culture a betrayal of the best parts of ourselves. Look no further than some of last year's best movies (Spotlight, The Big Short), to some corners of our political system, to all the places we look back and think, Wish someone had thought to ask about that.
Lindsay Jones isn't an advocate. She's not there to gild Peyton Manning in whatever heavenly hue you want reinforced, or to paint whatever demonic backdrop you think he deserves. She's a reporter whose job is to ask the right questions. Bravo to her for doing it. Shame on so many of you for not getting it.
I can't understand the extremists on either side of this thing. Anyone who feels good shouting from their own ivory towers that Peyton Manning is innocent and to even mention it is evil! or Peyton Manning is guilty as hell and anyone who doesn't agree is evil! is, well, stupid. Those are the takes of people with no interest in the facts. That's the take of someone hell-bent on whatever they want to be true being true.
Here's a fact: It was 20 years ago. We're never going to know what happened. And our judgment of Manning or his accuser, no matter how much we lean one way or another, will never be met with confirmation or refutation. There will be no answers here.
It's also true this is a story. The question of those accusations, fair or not, have resurfaced and became fodder for broader conversations about sports coverage, about fairness, about sexual abuse and false accusations, about so much more than football.
Which is why the question had to be asked. At his emotional and moving goodbye press conference. With his wife and children watching. Because a story is a story, and a story on accusations of sexual abuse of any kind -- those founded like at Penn State, those wholly unfounded like against former Syracuse assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine, and those in the more-common we'll-never-know category like with Jameis Winston or Manning -- need to be addressed.
What, you're telling me Manning was going to make himself available next week, or next month, or ever again to talk about a story that has raged since the Super Bowl? No. He was not, he will not. This was the one chance for a journalist to ask the obvious but the important, and one true journalist did. Good for her for doing it.
And here's the thing, at least for me. It made me like Manning more. Not just the obvious stuff, the moving tears held back and genuine love for the game that marked that moment Monday. The story about his daughter and their pre-Super Bowl conversation that, with a daughter of my own, I connected with in a real, moving way.
Full disclosure: Before covering sports, I spent a good chunk of time at a newspaper writing about sexual abuse. So while I've known victims of very, very real assaults that went unpunished as well as accusations of sexual abuse that were not true, my sympathies usually tend toward the accuser.
I know I'll never know what happened with Manning, but I believe a public figure so accused, even 20 years ago, should be asked about it. Just like this:
"Over the last few weeks," Jones said, breaking the reverie of the press conference. "There's been a lot of talk about things that happened 20 years ago in your career or in your life. What can you say now about those allegations and how this has maybe overtaken the discussion?"
"First of all, this is a joyous day and nothing can overtake from this day," Manning answered. "I think it is sad that some people don't understand the truth and the facts. I did not do what has been alleged, and I am not interested in re-litigating something that happened when I was 19 years old. Kind of like my daddy used to say when I was in trouble, 'I can't say it any plainer than that.' This is a joyous day. It's a special day. Like Forrest Gump said: 'That's all I have to say about that.'"
That's fair. Especially now, after the story resurfaced, that he's finally said something.
Journalism isn't about easy questions. It's not about your comfort level. And it's not advocacy. It's not about popularity or the easy moments. It's about the opposite, even if too many people who do this for a living forget that as they rub elbows with those they're supposed to cover.
So now, it's done. It's been asked and answered, Manning's response to a story that once more popped up and into the American consciousness. And having been asked and answered, having turned that press conference into something complicated rather than some groveling goodbye, the rest of it feels truer. Sometimes we need the ugly to enjoy the beautiful. It's the complications that give us some perspective, not pretending everything is just fine.
