Larry Fitzgerald senior is a sports reporter for the Minnesota-Spokesman Recorder, and his dual roleplaying of loving dad and honorable reporter has become one of prominent story lines of Super Bowl XLIII.

Both USA Today and Rick Reilly ran articles on Fitzgerald senior’s tough position in the last week, and both touched on the same theme: there is a no cheering in the press box rule standard for sports journalism, so it must be hard for a father covering the games not to cheer, especially when his son is having arguably the greatest statistical postseason at his position ever.

In the Reilly article, Fitzgerald senior says this about reporting from the upcoming Super Bowl:

“I won’t cheer,” Fitzgerald says. “I’m going to stay objective. I’ve come too far to suddenly show up in the press box with pompoms. But if you could put a monitor on my insides, you’d find a whole fan club in there.”

He delivered a similar quote in the USA Today piece:

“I understand there’s no cheering,” Fitzgerald says. “I’m there as an objective journalist. On the outside, that’s what you see. But inside, I’m high-fiving.”

Fitzgerald is talking about objectivity in the press box, but I’m assuming the no cheering rule was instilled to create objectivity in the reporters’ writing as well.  No doubt it’s a prevention method to combat readers questioning the legitimacy of an article if they knew the reporter was biased toward a particular team.

My question is, would Fitzgerald’s cheering change anything? I know I’m proverbially shaking the foundation of sports journalism here (please excuse the blasphemy oh journalism gods), but doesn’t it make more sense to give the readers full disclosure that he’s the father of Larry Fitzgerald and let him act/report as he sees fit? It’s not as if most of the football fans in the country don’t know who his son is at this point anyway.

Lets make the question even broader: why can’t full disclosure be applied to every aspect of journalism? I find the New York Times policy of not allowing reporters to wear political buttons old-fashioned and closed-minded. We’re all humans, even reporters, and we all have feelings and opinions. I would argue it’s better to have those relevant pieces of information laid out before the reader so they have a proper context for the article they are about to consume.

An example. Say reader X comes across an article by Joe Schmo, prompting this inner dialogue:

“Joe Schmo wrote an article about Barack Obama’s proposed foreign policy. Well, I see here that Schmo is a registered republican, so maybe I should read another article on the same topic written by a democrat to see if there’s a difference because I’m not sure I trust an article from a republican point of view on this subject.”

Now suppose reader X finds an article by a republican, and the article is the same. Doesn’t reader X respect Schmo for fair reporting now? And doesn’t X have faith in the publication Schmo writes for as place to find fair and balanced news?

If the junior Fitzgerald drops six passes then catches the game-winning touchdown, and Fitzgerald senior cheers, tears of joy in his eyes, before writing that his son played an awful game prior to his redeeming catch, don’t you respect him tremendously for that? And don’t you have more faith in the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder for their disclosure as well as their trustworthy and respectable staff?

I say cheer and be held accountable for your reporting Mr. Fitzgerald. Being a reporter isn’t synonymous with being a robot — you’re not the Cowardly Lion equipped with a pen and pad. You are a two things: a reporter and Larry Fitzgerald’s father. Be great at both. Cheer until your voice is hoarse, then use your fingers, blistered from clapping so loudly, to write the game as it happened.

Because whether you clue in  your readers or not, the fact remains the same: the game will be seen through the eyes and written by the fingers of the proud father of Larry Fitzgerald junior, wide receiver of the Arizona Cardinals.

Objectivity can’t displace perception, so why should it be a form of oppression?