A full week has passed since the story broke. Justin Gimelstob – Tennis Channel announcer and ATP board member since 2008, two-time Grand Slam winner, and coach of ATP #10 John Isner – surrendered to police in West Los Angeles and was booked for a felony battery charge in connection with a Halloween night attack on another man.

One would be hard pressed to find a member of the tennis industry more ubiquitous than Justin. If not in the studio, he’s in the booth. If not in the booth, he’s in the coaching box. If not at a professional event, he’s giving his time somewhere to some charity or cause. Care for him or not, he’s become the face of the Tennis Channel and one of the most identifiable ambassadors in all of tennis.

Radio Silence

Yet, not one of tennis’ established journalists as much as reported Gimelstob’s arrest. Not The Tennis Channel, not ESPN, not the New York Times, not even the usual suspects on Tennis Twitter (and nobody loves a scandal like Tennis Twitter). The ATP and TC only put out statements through a spokesman when asked, and they are not found on any of their media platforms. And this is regarding the felony arrest of a board member and top commentator!

ATP – “We are aware of the situation regarding Justin Gimelstob and understand that this is an ongoing police matter. It would therefore not be appropriate for us to comment further at this time.”

TC – “Justin asked Tennis Channel for a leave of absence while he works through this issue. As he is a long-time, valued member of our network family, we of course granted it to him. We believe that in today’s climate, perhaps more than ever, it’s important to recognize due process and the fact that there are multiple sides to every story. We don’t want to rush to immediate judgement, and will follow this closely as more detail comes to light.”

Lleyton Hewitt was the only player to speak out.

Its hard not to find the media’s careful nature regarding JG quite puzzling.

With the story dropping on Thanksgiving, maybe the press needed time to digest their holiday meals before digesting the news. But then Friday came and went. Then Saturday and Sunday, and still not even an official release through media channels.

I finally reached out to a colleague of Gimelstob’s. Asking to remain off the record, he stated JG was going through a historically messy divorce and they (the media) were ‘resistant to rush to judgment.’

Wait, what??!! Tennis media not rush to judgment? That loud thump you just heard? Tennys Sandgren and Doug Adler’s jaws bouncing off the floor.

Tennis Media’s New Day?

I mean, nobody sprints to judgment like the tennis media. Take any story of the past decade in the social media age. Sharapova’s meldonium, Neil Harmon’s plagiarism, Doug Adler’s firing from ESPN, Ray Moore’s Indian Wells debacle, Tennys Sandgren’s social media slips, or Serena Williams at this year’s US Open. What they all have in common is the transgressors were tried and convicted in the public space of social media before sundown, without even the illusion of a fair and balanced hearing of the evidence.

Yet, as it pertains to Justin Gimelstob, everyone collectively hit the pause button in spite of the breaking news coming from the highly credible LA Times and based on publicly available police reports. Has tennis so quickly turned over new leaf, becoming judicious in its reporting, or is something more at work here?

Ulterior Motives at Play?

Let me be clear about something. Nobody is being asked to form an opinion, or to take sides, or write a thought piece about Justin and his behavior. Nobody needs to do a deep dive on JG’s life, litigate JG’s past public relations issues, or prematurely ask that he step down from his positions throughout the tennis industry until his case is resolved.

All that’s being asked is to report the story like any credible media enterprise would.

Get the police report. Contact the victim. Ask for a quote from Gimelstob. You know, Journalism 101. Report the story like a real reporter would?

Scandal is never good for the long term health of any sport. Cycling, Track and Field, Baseball, Boxing, The Olympics. If the purity of competition is tainted in any way, fans turn away. When fans turn away, sponsors and ad dollars flee too leaving a diminished sport in every way. And that includes negatively affecting the media.

The media have a rational self-interest in tennis being portrayed in the best of lights. The more popular the sport, the more of an audience it attracts and the greater need for a vibrant media. The math is pretty simple.

If the charges against Gimelstob are true, it creates an obvious image problem for tennis.

Not fully reporting the story to the tennis public creates a different image problem for tennis and its media.

For the optics are terrible. All excuses of professional courtesy and due process aside, the jarring refusal of the media to report the unsettling charges against one of their own leaves the media open to the question, ‘What else would you not report on if it doesn’t serve your interests?’

I get the challenge in this. For as global and popular as tennis is, in many ways its quite small, incestuous, conflicted and dysfunctional, where the personal and the professional too often get crossed.

Tennis has some awkward history here. There’s the ATP burying Agassi’s positive drug test back in 1997. There’s tennis’ entirely futile handling of IMG CEO Ted Forstmann’s gambling problems of 2009, which led to the infamous TIU. When it comes to meting out discipline, Tennis has two sets of rules. One for the powerful and another for those outside those circles of power. Rarely do organizations trafficking in such double standards thrive and survive.

A free and independent media is crucial to the health of any organization. When the media entrusted with speaking truth to power collectively look the other way on a major breaking story on one of their peers, tennis suffers as a sport. Cowardice and craven self-interest are the only possible explanations to explain the media’s silence regarding Justin Gimblestob’s arrest. And that’s a long long way from free and independent.

Do you agree with Barry that there’s something larger at play with the tennis media and Gimelstob situation? Leave us your comments below!