During his tenure with the New England Patriots Bill Belichick has taken a lot of abuse for controlling the information doled out to the press. His laconic style has starved the media of stories about stories and personal views about brewing controversies.   Now it all makes sense. Belichick was right all along.

The media frenzy surrounding professional athletes crosses the line of gossip every day.  The New York Jets were transformed from mediocre performance to soap opera by the New York media. Tim Tebow was rescued by the Patriots, because there was no better sanctuary from the insatiable media.   Every member of the Patriots has been questioned about their views on a team mate now under indictment for murder, and yet no sensations have emerged at the outset of the summer camp.

The problem, of course, is that there is a story to be told in each of these cases. The question is when does the story become idle chatter and filling up airspace and column inches?

The Hernandez story has reached that threshold. A man is on trial for a capital crime, and his team mates are asked to pass judgment on that crime and indeed on the man’s character as a football player.  The Patriots have responded with characteristic restraint, including forbidding unauthorized commentary to the media.  Sound strategy for the team, as well as the legal process.

Now Belichick looks like a prophet of media control. The discipline he has enforced with the Patriots has made them a model of discretion and team solidarity.  They refuse to give fuel to the story-within-the-story, the idle chatter, known also as gossip.  They released their views of the Hernandez proceeding through their team captains and made it clear that Hernandez would not be the story to cover during training camp.  They shrank the gossip factor to zero.

Although I enjoy a story drained to its dregs as much as the next reader, I also think the need-to-know is an American obsession, challenged only by the British lunatic stalking of the royal family.  Athletes and celebrities who resist the pressure of the media and its voyeuristic readers can preserve a team culture, preserve family or fraternal solidarity, and prevent perversion of justice.  The news that is fit to print or broadcast is a lot less than the media deems necessary.

Belichick got it right.  Opinionating needs to be restrained in an era of omnipresent news coverage.  Professional athletes have no obligation to fill the media’s appetite for gossip, and they are wiser not to indulge it. But don’t expect the media to give Belichick credit for shutting them out.