Tiger Woods in Car Accident

Except now it will be "Get in her hole!!"

 

At Tiger? No. At the coverage? Absolutely. It's painfully hypocritical, for one thing, and it smacks of laziness and apathy, for another.

I mean seriously - if, in theory, it's not the media's job to report on this incident, then it <i>sure as hell</i> isn't the media's job to tell us "how the world works" vis a vis powerful men and young women. The smokescreen for "you know, we just don't want to do this story" is this whole "look, he's rich, he's famous, what would you do?" nonsense that commentators are alternating with "hey, it's none of our business." If it's none of our business, why frame the discussion at all? Because it's a huge story, is why, and since real journalists are dead asses on this issue, we have to rely on payola scam artists like TMZ and The Hills rag to deliver the news, then wait for the "scions" of sports journalism to tell us why it's not a big deal.

 

Alma, I'm not arguing that we absolutely, positively shouldn't be covering every element of this story. I'm trying to argue that the people who have been reporting it just aren't doing a very good job of it. They're focusing on the wrong parts of the story, and they're crying that Tiger Woods isn't going to tell us everything that happened. Well of course he's not. It makes him look bad.

In my opinion, he does deserve privacy regarding the affair. I see no reason why a pro athlete needs to issue a public apology for a flipping affair. It doesn't affect anyone in the public. Apologize to the people you hurt and fix it.

But if there's something to the wreck (and there seems to be), then find it. Don't just go on TV and talk about Tiger's image and his endorsements and how it's going to affect his chance to win the Master's. That's lazy, stupid and pointless. If you're just going to do that, don't bother. That's the stuff US Weekly and the NE and TMZ should be focusing on. And yet that's all we hear from ESPN, CNN, CBS, the WaPo, and so on and so forth. They aren't publishing anything new, anything different. They aren't shedding light on an obviously shady car crash. They're doing the easy work, the stuff that doesn't add anything to the story, and in two months, we'll see a bunch of people wondering why they can't get as many hits as these gossip sites.

 

I get that it can be annoying and irritating or whatever. I was just nit-picking your use of "outraged." I mean, did you sit there and scream at the TV, only to throw your hands up and walk defiantly out of the room?

 

But do you know why it's all about the affair? Because they don't want to do any actual work! You can't blame TMZ and UsWeekly for being TMZ and UsWeekly. Affairs are what interest them. What's outrageous is giant television networks and magazines allowing those two-bit joints the ability to settle the debate, because actual journalists don't want to work the story.

 

Apathy is how I feel about the Woods fiasco.

Looks like Jesper tore him a new one, and if any golfer has the right to criticize...I mean since this was a friend of his....

http://sports.yahoo.com/golf/blog/devil_ball_golf/post/Golfer-who-introduced-Elin-to-Tiger-tees-off-on-?urn=golf,206465

 

If you surveyed most sports journos you'd probably find that, no, they don't know how to do those things. Even SI usually farms out the serious legal stuff to people like Lester Munson and George Dohrmann. Sad to say, but in most cases it's asking too much of the Sports department, since it's not their usual thing.

 

No doubt because now that she's willing to drive the I-screwed-married-Tiger bandwagon, she going to nix the free video and get paid big $$$ for her story. I'm guessing it's time Radar Online showed up on the scene.

 

We agree. Although I'd argue that Tiger doesn't "deserve" the silence of his mistresses, or, for that matter, his wife. They can and have said whatever they want.

No, we can't break in to Tiger's house and be privy to those conversations. But if a mistress wants to say "yeah, I slept with him, and he called me to tell me to change my voicemail" the media shouldn't turn that down out of respect for Tiger.

 

I agree but I'll add an outsiders really cynical view.
Most main stream journalists have done an internal cost-benefit analysis of covering the Tiger Woods story and have concluded that they don;t want to piss him off. They realize that this blow over and Tiger will win many more tournements. Good sports journalists will alos realize that this incident will motivate Tiger to become more reclusive towards the press and motivate to not only break Jack Nicklaus' records but shatter it.

Sports journalists will realize if Kobe can come back from being the biggest sports douchebag of the decade, this particular Tiger story won't survive the 2010 Masters. If they ever have hope of covering Tiger again with any cooperation, they'll provide the perfunctory gnawing at garments and a slight outburst of faux moral indigination, and them try and worm they way back into Tiger's aura and anus.

The cynical view is that the outside-the-sports-world reporters are living for this story and the main stream sports journalists are looking ahead to the next 15 years of Tiger Woods.

 

How exactly could Tiger take it out on the media if they chase this story? Aren't there rules where PGA players have to talk to the media after their rounds? Or does that not exist? If it doesn't, and Tiger suddenly starts ditching those pressers that he has always attended, the PGA will start mandating them, I'm sure.

How else could Tiger burn the media in the future? I mean, as it is now, he already says pretty much nothing when he talks.