Let's start with a clarification. Mal Brown's comments at a lunch on Wednesday in which he described a group of aborginal players as "cannibals" were outrageous, offensive and any other adjective that comes to mind.

Such comments were commonplace through the 70s and 80s and while, sadly, they may have been acceptable then, they are totally out of place in 2010. Brown is smart enough to know that.

But spare me the self-righteous hand-wringing that is taking place in the Australian media today. Brown was front page of the Herald Sun and The Age and the radio jocks were quick to follow suit with the indignation and condemnation.

But this is Mal Brown that we are talking about. There has to be an element of caveat emptor if you willingly choose to be in a room where he is going to speak. As reminded by my learned BPL colleague Charles Happell today, it's a bit like buying tickets to a Rodney Rude performance and then complaining afterwards about the language.

The Age was its typically haughty self, calling Brown's remarks a "racist tirade". But there's double standards coming from Media House, because this is the same media organisation that allows "National Living Treasure" Michael Leunig to vilify Jews on a regular basis and which recently published reader comments at the bottom of a story about the Israeli blockade of the Gaza strip that suggested Jews control the media, the money supply and the world. Der Sturmer wouldn't have done it any better.

The Age website later apologised for a couple of the posts that appeared, but the damage was done, driving a further wedge between an entire community and an important Victorian institution.

I could go on, but because I'm no longer editor of the Australian Jewish News and this is a sports site, let's stick to footy and some of the poor reporting of the story.

Rather than try and draw a tenuous link between Brown, his son Campbell and his son's employer, the Hawthorn Football Club, how about some research instead? The remarks were made at a lunch, not a dinner, so the reporters had all afternoon to do a bit of Googling and to learn a bit more about Mal Brown before putting fingers to keyboard.

Yes, he was a colourful character from an era when footy was full of them. Yes, Carlton supporters have never forgiven him for breaking Trevor Keogh's jaw in 1972 during a match at what was then the All Australian Football Championships, which pitted the premiers of each of the four main football leagues - Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania.

But how about reporting that as coach of South Fremantle, he did more to foster the development of indigenous talent than any other senior coach in Australia, at least until Kevin Sheedy came along? Among those he nurtured at the club were Stephen Michael, Maurice Rioli, Brett Little, Ollie Loo Cadjy Dunn, Benny Vigona, Willy Roe, Basil Campbell and Nicky Winmar.

Michael, Rioli and Winmar were all named in the AFL's Indigenous Team of the Century in 2005.

No, you can just imagine the reporters at the function sitting together and discussing the easy angle, which was that Brown's son is a teammate of some of the genuine indigenous superstars of the game such as Lance Franklin, Cyril Rioli and Shaun Burgoyne.

Cranky old farts in the media caper would say the stories that appeared today about Brown are what you get when you send 'kids' to cover functions. In their eyes, that would mean any reporter aged under 35.

But perhaps the more important point is that footy writers need to have a feel for the history of the game and when relevant it should come out in their reporting. They would have learned a bit about Mal Brown had they put in the time and it may have been reflected in what they wrote today.

Thug? Tick. Loudmouth? Tick. Prone to speaking before he thinks? Tick.

Racist? No.