I know why the Green Bay Packers aren't in the Super Bowl, why the Milwaukee Brewers signed center fielder Mike Cameron and why the University of Wisconsin men's basketball team got off to a fast start in the Big Ten.

What I don't understand from the first month of 2008 is that little media-related hissy fit thrown by UW football coach Bret Bielema.

Bielema's tantrum followed media reports that defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz had been fired, offensive line coach Bob Palcic had taken a job at UCLA, offensive coordinator Paul Chryst was a candidate to become the coach at Purdue, junior cornerback Jack Ikegwuonu had decided to enter the NFL draft and linebackers coach Dave Doeren and tight ends coach Bob Bostad were the top candidates to replace Hankwitz and Palcic, respectively.

In a Jan. 9 press release, Bielema confirmed the departures of Palcic and Ikegwuonu, ignored everything else and went off on reporters for, well, doing their jobs.

"I know that the assistant coaches I hire may leave our program at some point and I have a plan in place when they do," Bielema wrote. "That is the case with Coach Palcic's position and when the time is appropriate and university policies allow, I will make that announcement. Personnel decisions in our program are made when the time is appropriate. They are not made in response to media speculation, anonymous sources, rumors or gossip — all of which has been in great supply in recent days."

OK, let's recap the rumor and gossip that had shown up in the media: Palcic did indeed make a lateral move to UCLA, Hankwitz was indeed fired two days after the Outback Bowl, Chryst did indeed have talks with Purdue about replacing Joe Tiller, Ikegwuonu did indeed enter the draft early and Doeren and Bostad were indeed promoted to defensive coordinator and offensive line coach, respectively.

No one's quite sure what Bielema is thinking since he speaks only via press releases these days, but it turned out the "media speculation" was on the money.

Even someone who lives by the 1-0 mentality should be able to comprehend that the, um, rumor-mongers were 6-0 on those stories.

Given that, it seems Bielema's primary complaint was that he couldn't control the flow of information, that reporters wouldn't abide by his time line for the release of news.

Of course, had fans relied solely on UW for their news, they still wouldn't know that Hankwitz was fired because Bielema didn't acknowledge that he was gone until a press release on Jan. 17, or one day after he was introduced as the defensive coordinator at Northwestern.

Even then, Bielema said only that Hankwitz had "moved on."

Maybe they do it differently in Iowa or other places Bielema has been, but here the media is expected to uncover and report the news.

Perhaps Bielema should walk across campus to the School of Journalism and find out what they're teaching over there because the professors are clearly not on the same page as the football coach.

In the end, Bielema can gripe about aggressive reporting just like he gripes about referees, but it's the norm in Wisconsin and he'd better learn to deal with it or he's going to be very unhappy here.

Contact Tom Oates at toates@madison.com or 608-252-6172.