Michael Vick Coverage, Sports Reporters Ripped by Daily Bell Financial Magazine

The opinions in this article are personal and are not those of Bleacher Report.

I did not want to write about this topic, but it had to be done in solidarity with my fellow sportswriters on this website and in other media.

While I write about soccer and have my favorite soccer teams, I am also an NFL supporter (Miami Dolphins) who feels that sportswriters need to be defended from perceived personal attacks.

The Daily Bell, which is a financial magazine, wrote an article with titled: "Does Vick Need Redemption?" The article itself criticized sportswriters as generally being those who "exaggerate every single wrongheaded characteristic of mainstream reporters." The quote was from the Daily Bell article.

The article continues with another quote: "Sport reporters take this to the extreme; they seem to positively revel in moral and intellectual certitude." The icing on the cake in my opinion was the quote, "writers who mindlessly celebrate the ever-increasing criminalization of Western sports."

The majority of sports reporters in all spheres of life (myself included) have never reveled in any form of moral and intellectual certitude because we are not perfect.

The purpose of the sports reporter is to report the truth about sports and/or sports personalities in the good as well as bad times.

We do not exaggerate the characteristics of the sports personalities and take into account their upbringing when writing. The people who are in sports love it, and that includes the sportswriter.

I have one last thing to say to the financial magazine that criticizes the sports writer, using a verse from the Bible: "Let the person who is without sin cast the first stone."