When the new media and college athletes come into contact, it can create many problems – and not just with sites like MySpace.

Before Web sites, blogs and sports radio, the reporters who covered college sports were pretty much divided into two groups – those who reported the facts and those who gave opinions on what the first group reported.

In the newspaper business, you were either a beat reporter or a columnist. Those two groups still exist, but the dividing line is a little blurred. I co-host ACC Nation, a sports-talk show about the Atlantic Coast Conference. We often have beat writers on the show, and they are asked for both facts and opinions.

A year or so ago, one of our regular guests who worked at a major newspaper in the ACC area, told us that management has told her and the other beat writers that, if they were on sports-talk shows, they had to stay away from expressing opinions. It made for some awkward moments when we would ask a question and she would have to say, “I can’t comment on that.”

Still, there are other newspapers without such bans, and it makes one wonder if coaches, knowing that beat writers may appear on radio shows and write for their newspaper’s blog, are sometimes a little more guarded with what they say.

Athletes sometimes aren’t media savvy enough to realize the same thing their coaches know, and I can see how that may get them into trouble.

It’s a fine line. While our radio show relies on beat writers, I can certainly see why a newspaper wants to make sure that those writers stay clear of opinions.