A recovering journalist's rant
Oh boo hoo! Poor Dan Wetzel! His widdle feewings are hurted because Tiger Woods made the stock remorse speech but objected to tabloid journalism. How dare the man??
Woods has no business calling the "respectable" media tabloid journalists, does he? After all, he only brings home a fat paycheck because of the news media, not because he can hit a golf ball. Why, the respectable media weren't the ones who paid six-figure sums for this story or that! All they did was pick up and repeat the stories once they were published by the people who did write the cheques, so they are without stain of sin. It's those other people who are tabloid journalists.
Woods' comment, however true, does reflect a certain naivete about the sensibilities of journalists and people who play them online and on TV. There is no remark more guaranteed to get a rise than "tabloid journalist." Journalists like to think they're like the people at Hebrew National, who answer to a higher authority. For a while, there was some truth in that. But during the last 20 years (not always, Danny Boy), when entertainment elbowed the news out of news, it has stopped being true. One has to go back to the late 19th century, when reporters stopped at little short of homicide to get their beat, and publishers started actual wars to boost circulation, to find an equal level of mendacity.
But let anyone—especially a celebrity—suggest something is wrong with such a retrograde picture and you'll need a beach towel for the tears. No one is more capable of self-deceiving hypocrisy than a reporter with a national byline. I exempt reporters with smaller audiences for the moment, but that isn't a matter of character; just lack of opportunity. As for the argument that sports media made Tiger, or Tom, Dick or Harry: sports reporters have never suffered from atrophy of the ego. They function best when they step back from the glare of reflected glory—or ignominy.
I confess I was primed to go over the top on this one by an afternoon WBZ radio news broadcast. The lead was that Mayor Menino will be coming back to the office shortly, after his surgery. Fair enough: that's a local lead story. On the day after Pres. Obama's Afghanistan speech, one might have thought that it, or better still a local angle on the speech, would have followed. But no: the news went straight from Menino to Tiger. We should be grateful, I guess, that there was a shooting in Brockton two hours later, or we would still be eyeball-deep in Tiger's tell-all trauma even on local news.
When logging on to Yahoo Sports, foolishly expecting to get relief with some sports news instead of 24/7 sleaze, I found Wetzel's tantrum. I have a hard enough time accepting golf as a sport, Dan: don't make my disbelief any deeper.
Woods has no business calling the "respectable" media tabloid journalists, does he? After all, he only brings home a fat paycheck because of the news media, not because he can hit a golf ball. Why, the respectable media weren't the ones who paid six-figure sums for this story or that! All they did was pick up and repeat the stories once they were published by the people who did write the cheques, so they are without stain of sin. It's those other people who are tabloid journalists.
Woods' comment, however true, does reflect a certain naivete about the sensibilities of journalists and people who play them online and on TV. There is no remark more guaranteed to get a rise than "tabloid journalist." Journalists like to think they're like the people at Hebrew National, who answer to a higher authority. For a while, there was some truth in that. But during the last 20 years (not always, Danny Boy), when entertainment elbowed the news out of news, it has stopped being true. One has to go back to the late 19th century, when reporters stopped at little short of homicide to get their beat, and publishers started actual wars to boost circulation, to find an equal level of mendacity.
But let anyone—especially a celebrity—suggest something is wrong with such a retrograde picture and you'll need a beach towel for the tears. No one is more capable of self-deceiving hypocrisy than a reporter with a national byline. I exempt reporters with smaller audiences for the moment, but that isn't a matter of character; just lack of opportunity. As for the argument that sports media made Tiger, or Tom, Dick or Harry: sports reporters have never suffered from atrophy of the ego. They function best when they step back from the glare of reflected glory—or ignominy.
I confess I was primed to go over the top on this one by an afternoon WBZ radio news broadcast. The lead was that Mayor Menino will be coming back to the office shortly, after his surgery. Fair enough: that's a local lead story. On the day after Pres. Obama's Afghanistan speech, one might have thought that it, or better still a local angle on the speech, would have followed. But no: the news went straight from Menino to Tiger. We should be grateful, I guess, that there was a shooting in Brockton two hours later, or we would still be eyeball-deep in Tiger's tell-all trauma even on local news.
When logging on to Yahoo Sports, foolishly expecting to get relief with some sports news instead of 24/7 sleaze, I found Wetzel's tantrum. I have a hard enough time accepting golf as a sport, Dan: don't make my disbelief any deeper.
Labels: media criticism
posted by Uncle | 00:18
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