The media receive a bad rap most of the time, and I’ve always felt this was unfair.

OK, so I’m biased, but it’s disconcerting to see journalists lambasted for doing their job, i.e. asking tough questions and reporting the information, even when it’s about unpleasant subjects people want to know about anyway.

Remember how the media were given tough treatment for reporting on issues such as the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the Columbine tragedy? The public was outraged, but kept picking up those Time magazines and watching “Larry King Live.” Blaming journalists for asking tough questions you want answered is supremely unfair.

Unfortunately, some reporters ask the tough questions at the inappropriate times.

Last week, right before Game Two of the World Series, former Cincinnati Reds baseball player Pete Rose was honored in Atlanta for being part of the All-Century Team. It was a good moment for Rose, who has been disgraced and hounded by allegations of gambling on professional baseball for more than a decade — allegations that have him banned from the game for life.

In the middle of the merriment, NBC sports reporter and commentator Jim Gray chose to ask, live in front the world, if Rose gambled on professional baseball?

He didn’t just ask one or two questions the way pesky White House reporters did in in the throes of Monicagate. Gray wouldn’t let up on Rose for several minutes. Rose got agitated, didn’t answer Gray’s questions (big surprise), and the backlash ensued.

NBC has received calls complaining about Gray. Newspapers across the country have attacked Gray’s investigative tactics saying he ruined a fine day in sports history; he wouldn’t let the issue go, even when it became evident that Gray was making everyone uncomfortable, not just Rose.

They believe Gray, usually a more-than-competent sports reporter, was being a vulture, the worst type of journalist — one who acts self-important for the cameras.

Everyone making these comments is correct. Gray wasn’t breaking new ground in reporting; he was trying to ask innovative questions when he was just embarrassing a man who’s already been humiliated.

Gray certainly has felt the effects of his two-minute-long faux pas. He apologized during NBC’s pre-game show on Tuesday, acknowledging that he made a mistake.

According to The Associated Press, Gray was quoted as saying “If in doing so [interviewing Rose], the interview went on too long and took out some of the joy of the occasion, then I want to say to baseball fans everywhere that I’m very sorry about this.”

In some fairness to Gray, he was just asking the questions that many baseball fans want to know, and I believe Rose does have some obligation to his fans and his former profession to come clean.

A journalist has every right to try to make Gray live up to that obligation. It’s Gray’s job to try to get to the bottom of what happened, and since Rose has dodged the questions for so long, it’s not surprising that some sports writers are becoming more aggressive in their reporting. Because of his silence, Rose shares some responsibility in the media hoopla.

As some of the pundits have pointed out, it’s similar to the “Did-he-or-didn’t-he?” George W. Bush coke dilemma. If someone avoids a question for that long, it becomes a greater issue than it normally would be.

Rose would put a lot of minds to rest if he would directly address concerns about whether or not he gambled on baseball. However, he shouldn’t have had to address them Sunday night.

Kate Kompas is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from LeClaire. She is head news editor of the Daily.