Nick Piccone
Eagles beat writer Jeff McLane was ejected from the press box after a discussion with Zach Groen, an Eagles’ public relations employee, during Sunday’s game. It left many of us confused, especially the people in the press box. According to Les Bowen, the reporters were discussing an issue regarding a penalty on the field when they were told to keep it down. McLane and Groen eventually went into another room to talk, apparently, and McLane returned and everything seemed business as usual.
RELATED: Jeff McLane Was Ejected from the Eagles’ Press Box
Shortly after, Anne Gordon, the team’s senior vice president of marketing, media and communications, and also a former Inquirer editor, came in with a security official to eject McLane. She gave a statement on the incident, courtesy of Philly.com:
Gordon cited McLane’s behavior and his bringing up the union during the conversation with Groen as factors in his dismissal. She did not elaborate.
“I asked for security to eject Jeff from our press box, a press box that has a standard code of behavior that every reporter understands and actually participates in endorsing and policing … so that people can watch the game and can follow and do their jobs carefully,” she said.
RELATED: More Fallout from Jeff McLane’s Eagles Press Box Ejection
Today on Philly Sports Talk, Eliot Shorr-Parks and Marcus Hayes, both present at the time of McLane’s ejection from the press box, talked about it.
On Sunday, The Inquirer‘s senior vice president and executive editor, Stan Wischnowski released a statement on the incident.
“We find the actions taken by the Eagles media relations staff to be extremely disappointing and unprofessional. Jeff has spent eight years covering the Eagles exhaustively in a fair, accurate and thorough manner. To prevent him from doing his job for something this petty is outrageous. It could have been easily resolved in several ways without ejecting him from the press box.”