Thanks. That wording is very revealing, isn't it?!
Not something along the lines of, "Things will come out that won't pint the club in a good light and you'll lose credibility if you're seen to be defending it." That might be contentious - for example, the FFP 'revelations' in Der Spiegel were dishonestly presented and subsequent discussions were risibly overblown. But at least such an approach would imply that sports journalists generally regarded their overriding objective as being to report the truth.
Your interlocutor may well be a decent guy whose primary interest was to look out for you. But he quite clearly implies widespread hostility among those in his profession, taking the form of a concerted attack on us. We basically knew this already, of course, but it's interesting to have confirmation that it can be spoken of like that in private, too. In contrast, publicly and especially on social media, people like Delaney usually just try to gaslight us.