Imrem: Less Chicago Bears news is good news
The biggest news coming out of Bears training camp so far is that there will be less news coming out of Bears training camp.
This means that even if the Bears don't win anything this season, they already have made a major contribution to mankind, womankind, kidkind, animalkind, mineralkind and vegetablekind.
In fact, the Bears should receive a Nobel Prize for limiting the football media's opportunities to win Pulitzer Prizes.
We're talking about the Bears restricting access during training camp at Bourbannais. Here is my interpretation of the new policy:
A journalist must have a net worth of $5 million to interview a backup offensive lineman; he or she must be a veteran of a foreign war to talk with a team captain; he or she must have lost a limb to a woodchipper to approach head coach John Fox.
These rules are new to the Bears, but the NFL long has had a garrison mentality.
Naturally, football writers and talkers are outraged. They point out that because they are conduits between the Bears and the public, the new policy is a slap at football fans.
Actually - and I realize this is heresy coming from a sports writer - the new policy protects fans from these sports journalists and these sports journalists from themselves.
Football writers are passionate about what they do for a living. They arrive at training camp - sometimes in packs of three or four from the same news outlet - with penned-up energy from the off-season even though there is no off-season because they feel compelled to dispense football knowledge year-round.
Down in Bourbannais, every move a Bears player makes, every breath he takes, every belch he burps …
Well, each is chronicled as if freedom of the press depends on everyone hearing about it.
A veteran wide receiver catches a ball against an undrafted free-agent defensive back? That's a tweet! A starting offensive guard glares at a backup defensive tackle? Stop the presses! An assistant coach yells at an equipment assistant because a football is deflated? That leads the noon news!
All that even though the only story worth filing would be if a Bears player was dating Ronda Rousey.
The way things have been going, whenever newspapers spill their final drop of ink, it figures to be a football writer writing one last story about a punter's turf toe.
Seriously, somebody has to rein in football reporters, and the Bears have accepted the burden.
This is almost second nature to football folks and has been since pigs began donating their skin to the game.
Football teams are paranoid by first nature. Like, the Bears' new regime must fear that if rivals learn that Jay Cutler has started throwing left-handed he'll be easier to defend, as if he could be any easier.
So, yes, the Bears' new media policy is self-serving, but an unintended consequence is that news consumers won't have to consume every tidbit that happens in Bears camp.
A fan no longer is in danger of his head imploding from the latest on what Coach Fox thinks of a special-teams aspirant.
(My goodness, you'd think John Fox was capable of solving all of society's problems during a single media session the way Mike Ditka could.)
Less is more sometimes, and in this case the Bears deserve some sort of medal for instituting their new media policy.
The world can wait until the first week of September for news of who the Bears' emergency quarterback will be.
mimrem@dailyherald.com