It matters who the messenger is and who pays the messenger

CONCORD, N.C. - So now photographic proof of Thursday's scuffle between Kevin Harvick and Carl Edwards is out there for everyone to see.

It's not that there was ever any doubt that what was reported actually happened. Too many people saw the two drivers pushing and shoving for that. They also saw photographers standing there, taking pictures of the whole thing, too.

Why weren't those photos immediately available on news wires and Internet sites?

Well, the sad truth is that most of the people shooting pictures in the NASCAR garage these days aren't there working - at least primarily - for news organizations.

Yes, they've got press credentials. But most of them are working in one form or another for NASCAR, for the race track, for one of the manufacturers or for one of the teams or their sponsors. That means they've got conflicts of interest.

As soon as word spread of the Edwards-Harvick incident, the rumors also started spreading that representatives from the teams those drivers represent were exerting influence to have the pictures withheld from distribution to the media.

I know for a fact that at least one person working for Lowe's Motor Speedway had images of the scuffle, and I also know that there was a discussion about whether or not those images should be supplied to The Associated Press so that newspapers and web sites everywhere might have access to them.

As I said in Saturday morning's paper, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that if Humpy Wheeler had still be president and general manager of this track there would not have even been a question about them being released. Wheeler would have taken the pictures down to the closest Walgreen's himself to have them process had that been necesary.

But Wheeler is gone and there's a new regime in charge. I don't know for a fact that the man who replaced Wheeler, Marcus Smith, was called in personally on the decision whether to sit on the photos or not. But if Wheeler still worked here I promise you he would have made sure anybody who hadn't heard about scuffle did so as quickly as possible.

Look, if you run the race track you might decide not to let the photos get out because you want to make sure your relationships with the Cup teams are good. If you decide that it's more important to make nice with a race team than to try to stir up controversy surrounding your race, that's a question of philosophy.

But as a fan, it ought to worry you that the rest of the photographers who got pictures of the scuffle didn't race each other back to their computers to get them sent out over the wires. That's the way things used to be, when you had professional photojournalists who were here to see and document the news and not primarily to shoot promotional pictures than can be billed to some corporate client.

The media can be a popular whipping boy these days, and we don't always get it right. But we are here so that the whole story - and not just what NASCAR and the tracks and the teams want you to hear - gets told and gets shown.

When it isn't, and when business decisions start trumping good journalism, that is when the media will let you down.