Leave it to television guys misrepresent a newspaper article to the fullest. Geez, after watching Fox Soccer Channel’s pregame show for this Earthquakes-Real Salt Lake live broadcast, I thought maybe the Salt Lake Tribune story detailing RSL’s early struggles in this morning’s paper was from some pompous lead columnist picking a fight with the local MLS team out of nowhere.

Instead, it was a standard beat story from a staff writer for a team that indeed was last place in the Western Conference entering the showdown. Players and coaches were quoted as acknowledging the frustrations of expectations unfulfilled. The pumped-up layout on the front of the sports page — top of the fold, huge doom-and-gloom headline — probably made the story look more damning than it was, and maybe the stereotype is true that broadcast producers generally only care about visuals anyway and don’t mind servicing watered-down content.

In the bigger picture, though, this falls right in line with Los Angeles Times soccer writer Grahame Jones’ gripe earlier this week about fans’ response to articles with information unfavorable to MLS teams — better known as “criticism.” It has to be said that for this league to thrive like its die-hard fans want it to, it is going to have to open itself up to the way MLB, NFL, NHL and NBA are all covered. That means looking at games, top players and season trends from every angle so fans can get the truest sense about the product they’re buying into. In my eyes, these types of critical articles are another sign of progress for a league that won’t go anywhere if it is covered like varsity high school girls softball.