Day four of Tiger-gate. So far we’ve learned Tiger Woods has an Escalade – black, with custom wheels – and can’t drive well at night, be it at slow speeds through his gated domicile or with his angry wife giving him a pre-botox facial with a 9-iron.
The media – which missed the story by 12 hours initially – is now in full tabloid mode, with TMZ camping out at the police station and digging up dirt on search warrants, hospital records and whatever else they may find. This is the kind of work TMZ was created for and God bless them, if we didn’t have them around we wouldn’t know about marital excursions of athletes or whether or not has-been pop stars are among the breathing – afflicting everyone and comforting nobody, what a beck and call.
Woods has canceled his appearance at his own tournament this coming week – no surprise. He is hoping the tempest will blow over, and hope is all he has. He’s now in the sights of a media obsessed with the inconsequential.
Sarah Palin became a public figure a year and a half ago. Find any standard news viewer who can identify her position on the taxation of oil company pipelines through her state, you should play the lotto. No matter it was her signatory legislative moment, or might give an inclination into her political thought process, but we know all about Levi, the babies and whatever gynecological frivolities the likes of The Atlantic or the myriad of investigative types can dig up.
Conservatives believe Palin’s targeting was some grand conspiracy, a matter of hunting down a candidate they didn’t like and turning on their own oaths of truth to bring down a candidate. Sure they don’t like the conservative – those doing the reporting – but the media’s behavior relating to Palin comes rather naturally, her being a conservative is just another aspect to exploit, making it all the better. The press wasn’t unprecedented in itself, just the volume of it. There are thousands of Palins out there, be it locally or nationally. Woods just became a Palin.
The media is obsessed with the inconsequential and the odd, whether it’s celebrities or politicians behaving badly (or behaving at all) or the usual conflict or horserace aspects it loves to report. This is why reality show wannabees crashing the State Dinner are given centerpiece treatment, while the Prime Minister of India attendance is ignored even as the president mulls Afghanistan. Fleeting fame for 15 minutes, and the media is looking for any and all it can dish it to – if it keeps selling, it keeps dishing, victims be warned.
But Woods could be fun to watch. His public reputation was impeccable. He’s taken his lessons from Jordan, Montana and the signature athletes before him. He’s a marketing empire and he plays by his own rules. He sets his own interviews – if you want to talk to Tiger before the tournament, be there on Tuesday. Doug Ferguson of the AP, SI Golf, ESPN – they all knew the rules and played by them.
The national media doesn’t. The helicopter shots of his house, the hounding, the FOIA requests – they’ll add up. If TMZ shows up at his house, chances are Elin won’t be wielding the 9-iron. What they don’t know of Woods may be their undoing. He’s fiercely competitive and beyond obnoxious if it suits him. (After some terse moments with Vijay Singh, Woods once waited until Singh was attempting to putt at a major tournament and blew a blast of gas that could be heard throughout the gallery.)
You cross Woods, do it at your own risk. What will come of it will be interesting – I find little chance the public, or his fans, would ever turn on Woods. They will turn on the media. How would TMZ or CNN handle millions of angry golf fans infiltrating its sites? It’s one thing to rip a political figure and deal with angry conservatives – sports fans are serious.
I was actually dropping by to gripe about this in the open thread! Great point about Palin.
I enjoy the occasional schadenfreude thrill as much as the next girl, but I have zero interest in this story. I change the channel when someone starts talking about it. Tonight, someone on Fox said, Oh he needs to release a better statement.
I got news! he doesn’t “have” to do anything to satisfy you guys, or TMZ, or the rest of the curious unwashed. And I can only hope he continues to stiff ‘em.
I think he’s banked enough good will, so that even non-fans are on his side, because– he’s Tiger. The only people feeling vindictive? the media.
So far today I hear the dreaded “owe” word repeatedly. He owes an explanation, he owes his fans. The former being code language for “he owes the media,” which is what this debacle is about. He’ll probably put some PR people together, come out with a statement or explanation and let things die down, but like you I wish he wouldn’t. Let the parasites starve.
Great post, JohnFN. I agree wholeheartedly. I’ve observed that the banality and obsession with celebrities that plagues the rest of the media is just as bad in the sports media. I’m ambivalent to Tiger but he has always seemed like a class act. Remember a few months ago when former Cleveland Brown Jim Brown was complaining that Tiger hadn’t done enough for the black community? With all due respect to the former NFL great, Tiger doesn’t owe anyone anything.
A quick side note: I now have satellite TV for the first time in 6 months. I happened to check out O’Reilly before the MNF game and was wondering, what happened with his hair? I’m not a fan of O’Reilly but if he finally stopped wearing a rug, I’m glad. Nothing wrong with balding men! In fact, I’ve always found it attractive. But not on O’Reilly…he’s just too bombastic for me.
Politicians want to run our lives and usually make them miserable, so there’s nothing wrong with our proxies returning the favor. Sports figures, on the whole, seem to think that running their own lives is a major accomplishment, so as long as there are no felonies involved (see NFL, NBA…), I’d prefer to leave them alone.
“The Media is obsessed with the inconsequential and odd.”
Funny you should say this. I was just reading an old Dave Barry book (“Bad Habbits” – 1986)and he mentions that “News” used to mean “Important stories that affect everyone,” and yet nowadays it simply means “things we can show our reporters standing in front of.” TV news being a visual medium, obviously the flashier, more sordid stories get better ratings, which is why every local news program in the US has done at least three 26-part investigative reports on strippers stripping in strip-clubs, whereas more pressing things like federal redistricting or school funding tend to go unnoticed.
Which, I guess, makes perfect sense. NBC is owned by General Electric, which produces many of the machines of war we use in Afghanistan, and many of the industrial robots that take jobs from UAW workers and whatnot. Obviously, NBC can’t be trusted to accurately report on stories that would make their corporate overlords look bad, so – if GE decides to kill everyone in South America, NBC will ignore it in favor of a story about whatever happened to Jessica Simpson’s dog. (“It died!”)
Jessica Simpson’s dog is dead?!?!
It would be nice if Tiger could just be let alone, but now that Gloria Allred has dealt herself in, that seems very unlikely. Where is Van Helsing when you need him?
And so it goes…
JohnFN, I agree with all you wrote, and sincerely hope the breaking wind to disrupt Vijay’s putting story is true, however if you expect anything to change you’re in for a long wait. Also, if you think folks were any different prior to this decade(s) you’re mistaken. Sports reporting was different, there was a gentlemen’s agreement among writers not to print the juicy stuff, but athletes were not. I’m sure you know the old chestnut about a naked woman running through the press corps on a train carrying the New York Yankees to an away game. The reporters were in the middle of their usual poker game when a naked Babe Ruth followed after her. One of the reporter’s quipped, “I hope he doesn’t catch her. We might have to write something.” It wasn’t unusual for baseball players to play games drunk and once drugs became more readily available athletes were no better than the rest of the population at resisting temptation. How many times was Babe Ruth married? Look at the Fatty Arbuckle scandal! It makes Jennifer and Brad look absolutely tame.
There is a large segment of society who will always lap this stuff up. Have you ever seen any of the “True Crime” periodicals from the ’30’s and ’40’s? They’d make Larry Flynt blush yet housewives bought ‘em and read ‘em religiously. How many of Shakespeare’s plays are based on scandals of one court or another, and weren’t those courts simply the celebrities of their day?
I’m sure you know the elements of story structure. The most classic form is a hero is found, he fights a struggle against a foe or foes and he is brought down by a woman, greed, ego or all of the above. The best stories end with the hero realizing his humanity, seeking redemption and growing wiser and more humble. I’m sure you also know the media loves short hand. They cover the stories they know how to cover. Even if there is no fall from grace for Tiger that’s how they will cover this because it’s the easiest way to report it. The script is already written. Then, a year or two, or three later Tiger will do something good and the media will haul out the redemption script.
We eat this stuff up because it makes us feel better about ourselves. I think the thought many men were thinking last Friday is, “Well maybe I can’t hit the ball like Tiger, and maybe I can’t marry a Swedish eau paire like Tiger and maybe Tiger’s gutt doesn’t hang over his belt buckle, but at least I haven’t cheated on my wife with a New York hostess and had my wife come at me with a 9 iron.”
Now, that’s the kind of manliness that practically guarantees a spot in the Wanks Hall of Men.
Also, I obviously know next to nothing about the guy, but I have always liked what I’ve seen. Tiger Woods has always come across as a class act and I don’t wish any ill will on him at all. I hope he and his wife and daughter are fine and live together happily until they die in their sleep of old age.
But I don’t care if the media is hounding Tiger Woods, or not hounding Tiger Woods because Tiger Woods chose to accept a salary of around $100,000,000/year to be a celebrity. The reason sponsors pay him $100,000,000/year is because they want people to associate him with their golf clubs and clothing and sports drinks and automobiles. Tiger Woods signed every one of those contracts and understood he was surrendering a little bit of privacy with each one. Is there a down side to it? Sure. I don’t think anyone of us has a job that does not have components that we hate, but how much cr*p would you put up with to earn $100,000,000/year?
I can’t respect him. Why would he not wrap a Buick around that tree? Some loyalty to his sponsors.
At least he kept it in the Government Motors family.
I only knew about the single car accident, nothing about an affair.
I gotta agree with Rufus’s point about the price of fame—and endorsements. Also, the media has done very well by him in the past. He comes in 9th in a tournament, and you have to read down to the sixth paragraph to discover who won. I don’t follow golf much, but that irritates me, and he’s the beneficiary of that, too.