The figures in the Singletary/49ers/KPIX quagmire; ugly all the way around; Thursday dish

It's quite telling when the message board commenter's have a better take on the abysmal 49ers/KPIX agreement to remove Dennis O'Donnell off the weekly highlight show and insert Kim Coyle as the new host.

And that's not really the story here. It's the apparent ho-hum reaction by the SF sports media, which seems more fixated between the lines and not concentrated on just what transpired between the area's #1 sports entity and its chief media partner.

..Some analysis:

*The 49ers: I don't think this petty episode got directly to Jed York's desk, but I do believe the inner-workings had to catch a little of his ear. At least I hope so. A hands-on owner who defines the front-office and is supposed to massage these types of things was no where to be found. That's not good.

*Mike Singletary: Singletary hasn't earned the right to bully a TV sports anchor, especially when the anchor was clearly over his head and flustered to the max. At the end of the now infamous interview/Jack Nicholson-'you can't handle the truth' ferklempta, O'Donnell looked as if he just got out of a root canal session. When your 0-2, (OK, technically 0-1) you have to gut it and do these weekly obligations. First off, Singletary gets paid for this and should know better. Now its apparent, he and the team want no part of O'Donnell, which only makes O'Donnell look better and the 49ers and Singletary look even worse.

*Dennis O'Donnell: My first reaction to the interview was that Singletary made "mincemeat" of DOD, and he did. O'Donnell received a heap of praise for "remaining calm" and asking "fair questions." Huh? Sure, he was great at letting Sing take control and on the verge of popping a mental cork, but a really good interviewer would have cut Sing off and TAKE CONTROL---"Hey, Coach, please, there are legitimate questions about your hand-picked OC, (Jimmy Raye)--the fans deserve to know...", etc., etc. Sure, its easy for me to tell O'Donnell what to do, but c'mon, that's pretty basic and I don't care that it was an "in-house" interview.

*KPIX-CBS5: OK, where do we start? You cower to a bully and undermine your #1 sports anchor. How must O'Donnell feel? Yeah, I know the 49ers have some "editorial control" over in-house 'stuff like this, but THIS involved a legitimate inquiry into the goings-on of the Seattle game. It wasn't a Q and A about the way Brian Jennings long-snaps--it involved what every Bay Area football fan wanted to know and if Singletary is going to do these type of shows, then he either has to answer, or ask to move on, (which had he done, there'd have been no brouhaha.) KPIX has no balls, pretty obvious that the 49ers pull the strings here. The end result is now we have Kim Coyle replacing DOD. Kim Coyle. I better not say anything more.

*SF media: Where's Ira Miller when you need him? Miller, the longtime football writer for the SF Chronicle, would have gone ballistic over this. He would have been right in the face of the PR guy in Santa Clara and asked what was going on, but unfortunately, David White is NOT Ira Miller. I love Matt Maiocco too at Comcast, but yo, Matt, where were you? You do a great job at covering the team's X's and O's, but as for this sorry episode, you were AWOL...and Kawakami and Lowell Cohn? This is right up your alley and you chose to write about the offense. That's OFFENSIVE. The truth is, all of 'yous, owe your readers, your viewers, your listeners BETTER than this sorry display. But then again, I think I already said as much. Maybe its only me and the commenter's who get it. You guys don't. Sad.

**Late note: Yes, Gary Radnich did chime in on his KNBR show and good for Radnich to defend his friend, DOD. He should have gone after KPIX.

*And this lovely diddy from Kawakami: "I can understand KPIX caving in to the 49ers, and the 49ers seeking a different interviewer, and the show goes on. Money gets made. Not by me, but ain’t that always the case?" Oh Tim, You have to be better than that, don't you?

*Finally, Cohn on the matter, (a little late, but better late than never)