Wednesday afternoon, on my drive on I-70 to watch the Tigers and the Sooners tangle, I passed the time listening to sports-talk radio.</p><p>I find one of our local stations unlisten-Neal-able, so you can assume which station and which show entertained me along the highway. And you can guess which host nearly made me drive off the highway.</p><p>The New Don Fortune expressed his disinterest in needing access and information from our New Carl Peterson, Chiefs general manager Scott Pioli. The New Don and his trusty sidekick, Mad Jack Harry, spent several minutes telling their listeners that we should trust Pioli implicitly and not waste emotion or energy worrying whether Pioli reveals himself, his plans or his players to the media.</p><p>Having worked in sports-talk radio, I&#8217;m aware the discipline requires a dramatic and healthy loosening of journalistic standards. But basic common sense and backbone are allowed and occasionally encouraged when hosting a radio show.</p><p>Supporting the new regime does not equate to rejecting the primary (and redeeming) role of the media.</p><p>It&#8217;s our job to acquire information and pass it along to you. Based on what we&#8217;ve seen from the Bill Belichick era in New England and our first two months with Pioli, gathering pertinent and enlightening information about the Chiefs is going to be rather difficult.</p><p>The Patriots, under Belichick and Pioli, reached the conclusion that too much media access disrupts locker-room chemistry and undermines the voice of the head coach. In New England, Belichick has turned the Boston media into an easy-to-play foil for his players.</p><p>He&#8217;s brainwashed his players into believing the media are evil, incompetent and stirrers of chaos. Obviously, we are not perfect. A collection of human beings cannot be flawless. There are instances when individual moments of incompetence make the media appear wicked or solely interested in controversy.</p><p>But overall, we attempt to be a watchdog of those with power. When we fail to play that role, generally speaking, terrible things happen. The Iraq War is a worst-case scenario. We trusted our president implicitly, led the cheers when we declared war on Iraq and declined to demand answers to difficult questions. Hundreds of billions of dollars later, and with our economy in collapse, we now blame poor, minority homeowners for the fall of our society.</p><p>I apologize. I digress.</p><p>Let me give you a worst-case scenario in the sports world.</p><p>If, in an attempt to duplicate New England&#8217;s three-Super Bowls dynasty, we neglect our journalistic, democracy-ensuring duty to challenge Pioli, there&#8217;s a far better chance that he replicates Carl Peterson&#8217;s Kansas City era than Belichick&#8217;s New England one.</p><p>Unchallenged leaders are dictators and quickly turn unethical.</p><p>For years, Kevin Kietzman and Jack Harry whined on radio that Peterson, in attempts to have them fired, harassed their former television bosses. Kietzman and Harry complained about Peterson&#8217;s heavy-handed tactics with players, their agents and their families.</p><p>Peterson acquired his nickname, King Carl, the old-fashioned way. We rolled over and gave him a kingdom. When he ushered in an era of winning after years of mediocrity, he treated the media as though his decisions and actions were above question. He became complacent and stale.</p><p>Scott Pioli is a human being. He&#8217;s capable of making the same mistakes as you, I or King Carl.</p><p>Sometimes people misidentify why they&#8217;re successful. Belichick and Pioli think the New England locker room is special partly because Belichick and the players have made the local media irrelevant. Belichick and Pioli believe in CIA-like secrets.