Former Fremantle star Shaun McManus has gone head-to-head with The West Australian’s sports editor over a string of Harley Reid back pages, but Jakeb Waddell says the newspaper is not backing down.
Waddell penned an opinion piece which went viral on Monday night, opening up on death threats he has received over the coverage.
Expanding further on the newspaper’s extensive coverage of the West Coast young gun, the Dockers great and co-hosts Nat Locke and Nathan Morris attempted to grill the sports boss.
Reid has been commonplace on the paper’s back pages during his debut season, depicted as part of a mock Harvey Fresh ad, ‘Mr Incredible’ and a golden statue. The back page was even left blank one day when the Eagles decided to rest their star.
“I have been really critical of this and I will stand by my thoughts on it, which is this is an individual which you are putting under extreme pressure and you are only going to heap pain on him as time goes by,” McManus said.
“This is my opinion, why do you think it is important, or why is it important to The West Australian, to make sure he is back page and every other page in the paper as the year goes on.
In response to questioning, Waddell said the focus on Reid was part of the Eagles’ new direction and the popularity the 19-year-old is gaining on social media and in the football community.
“At the start, definitely there were a lot of people that had that view. Our thing is, the Eagles are clearly going in a positive direction at the moment,” he said.
“They have got a new CEO, which is also a big part of that and I think Harley is the face right now of a club that is moving forward.
“But also, I haven’t been in any conversation with mates, experts, commentators, anything where Harley Reid’s name hasn’t come up in the first five seconds.
“As much as people say we blow it up, it’s also, pardon the pun, a bit of a read of the room I think.
“Every single week his game is filled with highlights and he is trending on Twitter straight away and we look at those things — ‘OK, that’s what everyone is talking about today’.”
The sports editor stressed he is open to fair criticism over the extravagant coverage, but said threats to burn down his office or calls for him to “kill yourself” were well beyond the pale.
Responding to claims The West does not dedicate enough column inches to other codes in Western Australia, Waddell pointed to the masthead’s in-depth work on Perth Glory’s A-League season and West Coast Fever’s red hot Super Netball campaign.
The West also has award-winning journalists in basketball, cricket and covering the WAFL.
“What I would say to those people is just flip the paper open. It is all in there,” he said.
“We have got some fantastic, dedicated journalists at The West. We have dedicated soccer writers, netball writers.
“People bring up these stats like, ‘he has been on 40 back pages’ or something like that, but you know we put one of those out every single day, right?
“While it is a massive stat and he definitely has dominated, you know there are like 70 other ones he hasn’t been on.”