Reporter explains her controversial interaction

Lynn Jones didn’t have a query prepared.

The 64-year-old veteran reporter for the Jacksonville Free Press was attending Jaguars coach Liam Coen‘s postgame news conference Sunday after his team’s 27-23 playoff loss to the Buffalo Bills.

Three other reporters had already requested game-specific questions when the microphone was handed to Jones, who was still wanting at her notes and making an attempt to determine what to ask the first-year coach immediately after a heartbreaking end to the season.

She ended up not asking something at all.

Instead, Jones spent 22 seconds of the six-minute news convention offering Coen phrases of encouragement and reward. Things like, “I just want to tell you congratulations on your success, young man” and “You hold your head up, all right? You guys have had a most magnificent season.”

Jones told The Times in a telephone interview Tuesday that the phrases “just flowed out of me.”

Those phrases prompted what appeared to be a real smile from Coen, who answered each of Jones’ seven feedback with a variation of “thank you, ma’am” or “I appreciate it.”

“The man was hurting,” Jones told The Times. But then “he starts smiling. ‘Yes, ma’am, yes, ma’am.’ And he felt better to know that it’s OK, it’s going to be OK. ‘I’ve done a great job,’ you know? So I was glad to make him feel that way.”

Video from the session shortly went viral. ESPN’s Adam Schefter wrote on X, “This is an awesome post-game exchange between a reporter and Jaguars HC Liam Coen.”

Associated Press reporter Mark Long expressed a different level of view.

“Nothing ‘awesome’ about fans/fake media doing stuff like that,” Long wrote in an X post that has since been deleted. “It should be embarrassing for the people who credentialed her and her organization, and it’s a waste of time for those of us actually working.”

Many others have weighed in on either facet of the issue. ESPN character Pat McAfee wrote in a prolonged X post that sports activities writers who criticized Jones’ actions are “curmudgeon bums” whose “opinions and thoughts are coming from a place of wanting to destroy sports.”

“feels like some journalism was actually done there,” McAfee added of Jones’ method.

ESPN reporter Brooke Pryor wrote on X: “look, it’s a kind sentiment, but it’s not the job of a reporter to console a coach in a postgame press conference. Pressers are to ask questions to gain a better understanding of what happened or figure out what’s next — and do it in a limited amount of time.”

Time wasn’t an issue for Jones, who said every reporter with a query had the chance to ask it. She added that her transient interaction with Coen appeared to lighten the temper a bit in the room.

Rev. Bernice King, daughter of civil rights chief Martin Luther King Jr., launched a assertion in help of Jones.

“Humanity + compassion done = unprofessional,” King wrote. “If so, the world could certainly use more ‘unprofessionalism’ right now. Thank you, Ms. Jones.”

Jones, who labored for the Jaguars as an administrative assistant during their inaugural season in 1995, has no downside admitting she’s a fan of the crew she now covers. She also has been a reporter for more than three a long time, including the last 18 years at the Free Press, and bristles at being labeled “fake media.”

“That’s where I draw the line,” she said. “That’s why I have not responded to the gentleman from the AP or anyone else for that matter, because it doesn’t affect me. I know my credibility. I know what I do and how we do it as an organization.

“They’ve been talking about us being a small-town market, but we have a big heart. We here at the Free Press, we do things intentionally and in a manner that’s reported from all eyes, you know, every community in that sense.”

On Tuesday, the Free Press — a member of the National Newspapers Publishers Assn., which represents more than 200 Black-owned newspapers in the United States — began promoting attire that includes the newspaper’s title, Jones’ title and some of the uplifting phrases she used during her interaction with Coen.

“Join the Free Press family and the Lynn Jones movement of nothing but love and get your t-shirt, hoodie or sweatshirt today,” the newspaper wrote on Instagram. “ALL PROCEEDS will go towards scholarships and internships to teach young journalists a positive spin to reporting!”

Jones said her actions at Coen’s news convention have been typical for her. “Oh, that’s me,” she said, “anybody will tell you.”

She added: “I’m a passionate person, so when I’m in these environments, it’s easy to be able to have a warm interaction with these individuals.”