We hate to beat dead horses—and that’s not fair to horses, so maybe we should come up with a new phrase … we hate to beat bad journalism, but there are too many examples of it in all phases of media coverage: entertainment, politics, sports, etc. The facts get lost in the madness and the rush for clickbait, ad-revenue generating content from a consumer public that doesn’t possess a lot of critical-thinking skills anymore.

Idiocracy, here we come. Sadly and truly.

NFL Thursday looks at the current situation with San Diego Chargers Head Coach Jim Harbaugh: suspended twice last season as his team was caught recruiting illegally, stealing signs illegally, and then obstructing investigations of both illegalities, the NCAA now has banned Harbaugh from coaching college football for four seasons. This is somewhat toothless on the surface, since he’s now in the NFL. However …

The sports media treats Harbaugh with kid gloves; is it because they get better audience numbers by ignoring his confirmed cheating and lying? Possibly. The free press has a Constitutional responsibility to protect the people from tyranny—not promote it for profit through ass kissing and sucking up to the subject. Again, this applies to all veins of journalism, whether it’s politics or sports. So, what’s the issue?

The audience. We’ve seen time and time again that numerous fan bases seem to be fine with cheating when it benefits their own team and brings bragging rights via illegitimate championships. And that’s a sad commentary on alleged American ethics. Of course, as published historians, we also know that has been somewhat of a false narrative from the start, as the United States was built upon two genocides, really.

Yet if the common fan had more integrity, then it would force the hand of the mediots to have more integrity as well. Is that possible still? Or is it too late in America to correct the course of sportsmanship? This sense of tribalism with sports fandom is right out of a British soccer manual, really, and here in the United States, haven’t we always tried to pretend we were superior to England and its ilk? False bravado.

Therefore, if the fans won’t draw the line somewhere, en masse, regardless of their emotional investment in a specific team or university, then the mediots need to do it for them: again, that’s their role as members of a free press. Protect the people from tyranny, no matter what the source, journalists—even from yourselves, really. Harbaugh isn’t the only one, obviously, that the media treats with undeserved adoration.

He’s just the one in the spotlight right now, and the sports mediots have to start somewhere.