John Clay’s Sidelines

Photo by Charles Bertram.

Update: Here’s a good Paul Daugherty column — Paul’s columns are always good — about the Lewis/media and Bengals/public relationships.

Two games away from closing out a dismal season, Bengals coach Marvin Lewis turned a reporter’s question into a press conference spat today. The Cincinnati Enquirer’s Dustin Dow, who does a terriffic job, was the reporter.

Here’s the Enquirer story.

And here’s an excerpt of the exchange:

Dow: If you guys finish this out winning three in a row, or even two of three, how much will it show that improvement has been made, versus covering up improvements that still need to be made?

Lewis: “Oh, I don’t think it covers anything up that we feel interiorly, and that’s the only thing that matters. Dustin, all your angles and so forth, I’m going to ask other people questions because I really don’t like the angles you take in here each and every week.”

Dow: What’s wrong with that?

Lewis: “I just think it’s disrespectful for what we’re doing. I really do. So I’ll tend to answer the other guys’ questions. Anything else?”

From there, Lewis tells Dow that he won’t answer any more of his questions, and that the paper might have to send someone else over to do his job.