By STEVEN ISBITTS

Isbitts is one of the Joes at JoeBucsFan.com. He has written for many publications and spent 6  1/2 years writing for The Tampa Tribune in the sports and news departments.

It sure seems that Chris Harry of the Orlando Sentinel and Ira Kaufman of the Tampa Tribune made a friend for life in Jon Gruden. Their extra gentle exit interview of Chucky likely set him up to be a source of theirs for years to come.

Sports beat writers must consistently ask the tough questions of players, coaches and front office staff for the benefit of readers.

That’s what the job is all about.

At the same time they still have to play nice and maintain sources within the organization they cover.

It’s not easy. You don’t last long in the business as the reporter nobody will talk to.

That brings us to the rare “joint” interview of fired Bucs coach Jon Gruden last week by Tampa Tribune NFL writer Ira Kaufman and Orlando Sentinel Bucs beat writer Chris Harry, two longtime veterans of their newspapers. Stories from the interview were published this past weekend.

After reading their similar stories, thousands of Bucs fans let out a collective, “Huh?”

There were no red-meat questions of Gruden that had fans at the edge of their seats, even if the answer from Chucky was, “No comment.”

All the tough questions Bucs fans would have wanted asked were missing, it seemed, specifically the ones about personnel decisions over the past seven years, among other topics.

Harry’s story in the Sentinel was in a Q & A format, which gave a clear view of the line of questioning. These were the eight interview questions of Gruden published in the Sentinel.

Q, Right now, it looks like you’re going to take a year off

Q. People are going to think you want a college job

Q. The spread is being run high schools and colleges, is it possible it could be a base offense in the NFL one day?

Q. Most people are dismissing Tebow as a quarterback in the NFL

Q. How’d you come to terms with being fired for the first time in your life?

Q. What about the jabs taken at you? DId the comments by guys like Jeff Garcia, Michael Clayton and Simeon Rice hurt?

Q. How would you sum up the last seven years?

Q. Will you pull for the Bucs now?

One look at these questions and it sure seems that Harry and Kaufman were more concerned with keeping Gruden as a future source than providing compelling stuff for the Bucs fans who read their work.

If that’s the case, it’s unforgivable. Gruden is not a Bucs coach anymore. He should have been grilled quite a bit more. At least one question should have made him squirm or challenged his spin-spewing skills.

Thinking this interview was censored in some way by Gruden — meaning he made topics off-limits — I asked Ira Kaufman to explain the ground rules of the interview, if any, established by Chucky.

Kaufman responded with the following in an e-mail today: “Gruden set aside some time of our visit that was on-the-record and he did not designate any subjects that were off limits for that time period.”

JoeBucsFan.com readers can decide if Harry and Kaufman went softball on Chucky.

Kaufman and Harry deserve major kudos for landing the Gruden interview. But the take here is that the fans deserved a lot better.