Nathan Buckley Passionately Criticises The AFL Media Landscape

(Image: Twitter)

Viewers have praised a very open and frank conversation between Nathan Buckley and Craig Hutchison on Channel 9's Footy Classified last night on the state of football media.

Buckley didn't hold back as he lined up the media landscape - in particular, the habit of 'doorstopping' to get exclusives out of reluctant players.

The Collingwood coach described the practice as "cringeworthy"; when Hutchison encouraged him and others to create an environment where players are more accessible to talk to.

"Our job is to communicate with our members," Buckley said.

"To bring them as close to the football club as we can. And we try and make our players as accessible as possible to our supporters.

"As senior coach, my job is to prepare the team to play winning football. If my players are uncomfortable walking into work because they’ve got a camera shoved in front of their face - that’s not great.

"I feel uncomfortable when someone tries to doorstop me. It’s not right. Don’t do it."

Hutchison replied that it has been created by the clubs themselves who have been overly restrictive with player access, but Buckley disagreed.

"No, it’s created by the competition that you guys have created for yourself," Buckley said.

"Channel 7, Channel 9, Channel 10 - all of the footy shows. Try and get a grab that no one else is going to get, plug it within an inch of its life.

"It's like TMZ."

The Brownlow medallist also went as far as to say that the media can't be trusted in their reporting of information.

"The mistrust between media and clubs is born out of inaccessibility," Hutchison debated.

"It’s born out of who you allow to sit at the pinnacle of your media," Buckley replied.

"I can talk for 10 minutes, 12 minutes in a press conference - and I know the line that will be used.

"And it won’t be representative of what I’ve said in the press conference.

"The little grabs you use are not always representative of reality, and the media is responsible for how you use those grabs and how you create reality because it’s very far away from where it actually sits."

Watch the full discussion here: