SNY is apple of investors' eyes

It's only Thursday, and I aleady have completed a rare triple crown of New York regional sports network poobahs.

Sportswriter glamour!

Monday, I spoke with YES programming president John Filippelli at a "CenterStage" taping with Adam Sandler (premiering Friday night).

Tuesday, I spoke to MSG men Mike Bair and Dan Ronayne at an event to promote a series on the 1986 Mets coming March 1-4.

Wednesday's big finish was a midtown Manhattan lunch with SNY president Steve Raab, which resulted in this story about how and why the network is the apple of potential Mets investors' eyes.

(I was supposed to have lunch with Brooklyn Decker, who is promoting a movie, but when that fell through Mr. Raab became Plan B. Sigh.)

The story only scratched the surface of the interesting things Raab said. Below are some of his thoughts about one of the best things about SNY: Even as a mostly team-owned network, it generally has not shied away from reporting on negative news surrounding the Mets.

For example . . . the news of the past couple of weeks.

Raab: "This whole notion of objectivity, absolutely, that is from [ownership]. It’s not something you can sell to them, it’s something that I think has to come from top down.

"And let’s face it, if you work over at the team, depending on the role you’re in, objectivity may not benefit you every day in your job. You would like a house organ sometimes. But these guys have not wavered from Day One about being objective and fair, by the way including these issues that have come up recently.

"Let’s face it, when this objective positioning was set up at the beginning, I don’t think anyone thought there would be as many tests as there have been, and there are so many times where they could have said, 'I know we started this way, but... '

"This is the ultimate test, probably, and they have not changed their tune."

Raab said he discussed with senior staff this week the notion of not falling into the trap of self-censorship when it comes to covering the Mets.

 "It won’t benefit us to come off as defending them as a house organ," he said. "We need to be fair and objective."