​FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA – MAY 18: Lionel Messi #10 of Inter Miami CF speaks in the post-match interview after the MLS match between Inter Miami CF and Orlando City at Chase Stadium on May 18, 2025 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. (Photo by Megan Briggs/Getty Images)Getty ImagesWhatever you think of the state of print journalism, that the Miami Heraldlaid off 30 employees on Thursday was hardly remarkable in the industry’s current climate.That those cuts include the reporter assigned to cover the city’s most famous athlete is a different story.Veteran sports reporter Michelle Kaufman was among those culled in the latest round of downsizing by McClatchy, the Herald’s parent company. That is some choice considering Kaufman has owned the beat covering Lionel Messi and Inter Miami since the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner arrived in South Florida in the summer of 2023 and immediately became its most recognizable sporting face.It’s hard to know exactly why Kaufman was targeted, aside from the fact that this was a huge reduction in force that was bound to take out some more established staffers.Among other factors may have been her seniority; with three decades at the once-proud metro daily, her salary and benefits package was almost certainly more costly than those of more junior employees. There’s also the sheer level of competition for attention in the Miami sports market, with all four major North American sports leagues present in the nation’s eighth-largest metro area (according to 2025 Census estimates).Even if Messi is the most famous player in Miami sports, Inter Miami still punches at a lighter weight than the NFL’s Miami Dolphins or the NBA’s Miami Heat.Did Infrequent Messi Access Play A Role?But it’s hard to ignore the reality that, for all the strong reporting Kaufman delivered, she did so with less access to players than peers covering those other major sports leagues, where locker room availability is a league-wide mandate. And it’s easy to imagine decision-makers devaluing Kaufman’s Messi coverage when, through no fault of her own, it very rarely featured insights from Messi himself.Yes, Kaufman broke plenty of news, including Luis Suarez’s decision to return to Inter Miami this season, and the club signing reigning MLS Goalkeeper of the Year Dayne St. Clair as a free agent. And she did speak exclusively with Messi in a 1-on-1 shortly after his start to live in MLS in August of 2023.But three years later, Miami continues to skirt MLS media regulations designed to facilitate locker room access similar to the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL. Messi has kept his interactions with media very limited and mostly in a 1-on-1 setting, rather than in the kind of scrums or podium settings most U.S. sports stars have to navigate. From a distance, it appears MLS either can’t enforce its own policies or has determined it’s not worth the effort. (To his credit, outgoing MLS Commissioner Don Garber has said players and coaches need to emb