Tiger Woods, you may have heard, got himself into a little fender-bender late last week. Since then, we’ve been greeted with the predictable flurry of Woods stories, from the relatively straightforward to the sensational to the thoughtful to the tangential-at-best. Some media-watchers have argued that, since Tiger is a private citizen, we should leave him alone; others have argued that, since he is a celebrity, he is fair game for coverage.
There is clearly a public appetite for information about the Woods story—or, more specifically, for coverage of the Woods story. Indeed, “whenever a story like the Woods story emerges,” Time magazine’s James Poniewozik wrote in a blog post yesterday,
one of the most entertaining aspects is watching the contortions the respectable media go through to put a sufficiently meta spin on it, to justify covering the hot topic (and not passing up all those free eyeballs), while appearing to be serious-minded, and not like all those other outlets just trying to pry into Tiger Woods’ personal life.
Like so many things that the trapped-in-between mainstream media does nowadays, though, this probably does it little good in the long run…. What these half-measures do, more than anything, is convey the sense that the mainstream media is phony, inauthentic, that it lacks the courage of its convictions either to go all in and give the public what it wants, or take a bullet and stick to its principles. Trying to please everyone, it pleases no one.
That said, hope springs eternal in the mainstream media that there is a way of properly threading the needle when it comes to juicy stories like this one—that if they are simply self-aware and meta-referential enough, acknowledging these contortions will make the contortions somehow more acceptable.
With that in mind: is it, indeed, possible for the media to ‘thread the needle’ in this case? Can members of the press satisfy the appetite for news about Woods without sacrificing their principles? If you were an editor, what approach would you take to the Woods story?
Principles? Which mainstream media are you referring to? Did you somehow miss, just for example, the Princess Di, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus photos, Michael Jackson, Balloon Boy, etc. coverage?
#1 Posted by Ken, CJR on Tue 1 Dec 2009 at 01:50 PM
Proportionality is the first thing to go and it went a long time ago. And before we get all weepy for Tiger and his privacy, someone should review the video press release, er, report that "60 Minutes" did on the great man not so long ago. Nobody's a virgin here.
#2 Posted by Steve Daley, CJR on Tue 1 Dec 2009 at 02:20 PM
It boils down to if you like Tiger. We all have close friends or associates that we will forgive for anything. "Don't worry-nobody is perfect." And then we all know/work with folks where we are waiting for them to screw-up and pounce all over them. This humanity creeps into an editors decisions. Where was the media protectionism for Kate Hudson when the New York tabloids pounced on her, where was the mainstream media honor on that one- and all she did was openly date a guy who was single. And if Tiger gets 100 mil a year for being an endorser/spokesperson, why can't a gal get a few bucks for her pictures/story. My point is that I have never seen this mainstream media reluctance for the story with others. Tiger is like a baseball player who has hit a number of easy home runs off the media- then the tabloids came in and threw him some brushback/knockdown pitches. How come I never say a story angle such as a fire hydrant getting knoked out of service poses a problem if your house is on fire. The media built his reputation and looked the other way at his faults. Where was the outrage when he threw his golf club into the crowd a while back-any other player in another sports would have been suspended but the mainstream media looked the other way. How about more coverage of Tiger being called out for not being socially responsible with his money, talk to Jim Brown about that. Most of the media likes Tiger so they DON'T want to go after him.
#3 Posted by Paul T. O'Connor, CJR on Wed 2 Dec 2009 at 12:56 PM
Maybe media types like Tiger, but it's also an incredibly boring, irrelevant story. Really - this is a big deal that an athlete had an affair? Is the pope still Catholic?
#4 Posted by JCH, CJR on Fri 4 Dec 2009 at 12:32 AM
I did in fact write about it, but that was as a 100 hit per day blogger who is protected by the anonymity that the world wide web provides. If I were a big time editor at, say, the Times, I'd insist on putting the reporting of this stuff where it belongs -- you know, in the section of the paper that you line the cat litter tray with. And if one of my op-ed star wanted to take a swipe at it, fine. Bottom line being, in no way does this story, or the Salahis too for that matter, displace Afghanistan, the economy, or Copenhagen on my front page, either online or in print.
Then again, I felt pretty much the same way about Clinton's blow job.
#5 Posted by Brian Donohue, CJR on Sat 5 Dec 2009 at 04:44 AM
I'm actually in favor of the cable news venues and pubs like Time Mag covering the Tiger story to their hearts content. The more the better. That keeps them away from trivializing the more important stories with their superficial, purposefully-dumb, petty horse-race and "he said-she said" type coverage. When the cables are obsessing about celebrities and balloon boys, people who are interested in more substantial news are forced to seek out better news outlets, like Agence France Presse, Reuters, the Beeb, C-SPAN, PBS, and of course the blogs who cover substantial issues.
No use in hand-wringing over this kind of celebrity obsession -- it's inevitable and it has ever been thus.
#6 Posted by James, CJR on Wed 9 Dec 2009 at 07:59 AM