Sports

Viral Florida Basketball Reporter Pours Gasoline On Fiery Debate About Decorum In The Press Box

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Talia Baia Viral Florida Reporter Cheer
© Scott Wachter-Imagn Images

Florida beat reporter Talia Baia was thrilled to see the Gators win the college basketball national championship in San Antonio on Monday night. She just couldn’t show it.

There are rules against cheering in the press box!

Baia, a student reporter for ESPN Gainesville, is currently enrolled in the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida. You probably know her best from her viral moment with college basketball player Bennett Anderson at the Elite Eight. He got into the game as a walk-on and scored, so she spoke to him in the locker room after the game.

People immediately cracked jokes about his wide-eyed demeanor during the interview and inability to stand up from his seat. It was dumb internet stuff, but Anderson took it in stride. Florida even released a shirt to commemorate the hilarity. Both he and Baia got a cut.

Anyway, Baia was in attendance at the Final Four and national championship. She was there to cover the team she has covered all year. Obviously. As it says in her bio, “it is her job is to put herself out there.”

For those who are not aware, reporters are strictly prohibited from cheering when on the job. They must be objective. They must be completely impartial. *rolls eyes*

This unspoken (yet widely enforced) rule was established back when folks wearing drivers caps, knickers with knee socks and loafers were arriving to the game with their pencils and spiral notebooks— back before most of the people reading this sentence right now were alive. It’s just always been a thing. You learn about it in class as a student journalist. The old-heads are very quick to reprimand you if you forget.

I could not disagree more with the outdated rule. Things are completely different in 2025 than 1937.

Why do sports journalists/media personalities who write for a specific fanbase need to act objectively when something cool happens and/or when the team they cover wins a big game? Especially as a student. It would be different if the person in question writes opinion-based articles for a national publication like the New York Times but those jobs don’t really exist anymore.

We have guys like Charles Barkley actively cheering for Auburn on a CBS broadcast. Is it really that bad for a beat reporter to give a hoot or a holler while on the job? Of course, I say all of this to discuss behavior within reason. Going bonkers in the press box isn’t cool. To clap a few times is no big deal.

Nobody outside of the press box sees these people or how they act. Who cares?! The public only consumes the content that is produced by said people, which should be produced without bias. Performative objectivity in the press box does not have an impact on anything of value. It does not discredit a person’s content if the content itself is good.

And yet, people care. A lot. Talia Baia found that out the hard way. She posted a video at the Final Four that showed her reaction to Florida’s win over Auburn. She was very excited but people were furious.

I do not envy the next generations of sports journalists who will also have to be content creators to command an audience.

But that doesn’t mean compromising on basic fundamentals like not pulling for the team you cover.

— Cincinnati Bengals beat writer Ben Baby

The backlash to Baia’s video was so extreme that she was forced to take it down. The discourse got nasty for no reason. It was ridiculous.

Now fast forward to Monday night. Florida won the college basketball national title. Baia was sitting floorside on media row. How was she supposed to react to such an insane finish? Completely bored?

I just don’t get it. I have a bigger (still insignificant) issue with how Baia makes herself the subject of the story than I do with her excitement about a Gators win. She knows the players. The players know her. She is happy because they are happy. She is happy because she pays thousands of dollars to attend the school that just won the national championship. A win also makes a better story than a loss.

Talia Baia should be happy. I would be. Why must we force her to hide those emotions? At what point do the old-heads need to get over their unwritten rule about cheering in the press box? Today is that day.