Media self-protection?

University of Montana football coach Bobby Hauck is getting raked over the coals because he (and the members of the team) are refusing to speak with reporters from The Kamin, the student newspaper, after the paper published a story (the facts of which have not been contested or criticized) about an on-campus assault allegedly involving two players. Hauck has publicly humiliated student reporters when they have tried to ask football-related questions at his weekly press conference ("Oh, now you want something from me?").

Hauck is certainly not the first college coach to go off on a 20-year-old student reporter in a way he most-assuredly never would do with a member of the professional (especially national) press, who he needs to publicize his team. (See, famously, Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy's "I'm a man, I'm 40" rant).

Here's what I find interesting and somewhat disappointing. No one from the professional media (the Missoula paper or local TV outlets) seems to have come to The Kamin's defense, namely by refusing to cover the team unless Hauck (if not the players) stopped boycotting student reporters. Contrast this with the stance of mainstream news outlets such as The Times as to the White House feud with Fox News; several have talked of not attending WH press events if Fox is excluded. For all the criticism of Hauck, this never seems to have come up.