For the past few weeks, before the Friday evening television marathon begins, I have wondered how many more power abuse stories I can manage. I have a profound respect for the few journalists who actually report these stories, but I have recently experienced the odd sensation that I’m nearing the point of saturation in the outrage department. Really, I’ve come to think, almost regardless of where you look, someone is lying into the camera while stealing as much money as possible and then revving up the blame machine before the checks are even deposited. I think it’s that bad.
On Friday, I was reenergized by – who else? – Bill Moyers. For me, the hour that he’s on must be like the hour that my ancestors, who had just landed in a new and mostly unwelcoming country, spent in mass: familiar, comfortable, reassuring.
But before Bill Moyers – he does not come on until 9 – there was Katie Couric. I expect rampant stupidity from the morning clowns pretending to be journalists, but even I was stupefied that the first 10 minutes of the CBS Evening News – Walter Cronkite’s old show – was all about Tiger Woods. That is one third of the entire program, and more than one third if you subtract commercial time, which would bring it closer to one half. Since this story is so clearly the news of the world, I decided to pay attention, and here’s what I think:
· According to many, Tiger’s wife “is remarkable.” No, she’s not. She married a jock with millions of dollars, so she won’t have to worry about money for the next several lifetimes. When she learned that her husband was cheating on her – surprise! – she didn’t need to rely on the kindness of others or move to a shelter: she just moved into another of their many, many homes. Poor thing. Smart, perhaps, but not remarkable.
On Friday, I was reenergized by – who else? – Bill Moyers. For me, the hour that he’s on must be like the hour that my ancestors, who had just landed in a new and mostly unwelcoming country, spent in mass: familiar, comfortable, reassuring.
But before Bill Moyers – he does not come on until 9 – there was Katie Couric. I expect rampant stupidity from the morning clowns pretending to be journalists, but even I was stupefied that the first 10 minutes of the CBS Evening News – Walter Cronkite’s old show – was all about Tiger Woods. That is one third of the entire program, and more than one third if you subtract commercial time, which would bring it closer to one half. Since this story is so clearly the news of the world, I decided to pay attention, and here’s what I think:
· According to many, Tiger’s wife “is remarkable.” No, she’s not. She married a jock with millions of dollars, so she won’t have to worry about money for the next several lifetimes. When she learned that her husband was cheating on her – surprise! – she didn’t need to rely on the kindness of others or move to a shelter: she just moved into another of their many, many homes. Poor thing. Smart, perhaps, but not remarkable.
· There are golf analysts. I did not know this, although I suppose I should have. One of them explained that these situations are really tough on everyone, no matter how rich they are. Given the number of people who have lost most of their retirement over the past year and a half, along with their jobs and their homes, I thought that was one of the most crass comments I’ve head in a while.
· A woman’s golf team at a college in California is very troubled by the entire thing. They are not sure if they can salvage their faith in the game. In a display of misplaced emotion so over the top I was actually entertained by it, one young woman, through barely controlled sobs, said that she was devastated that Tiger “tore [his wife’s] heart out.” This, on our evening news.
· I actually respect Tiger’s decision to make his statement on Friday, which, according to the analysts, was done to agitate Accenture, which sponsors the golf tournament underway and used to sponsor Tiger himself. I'm not sure why the timing of Tiger's statement irked Accenture, but aparently it did. Accenture, which dubs itself “the world’s largest consulting company” – that’s a problem right there, a big one – is so proud of its outsourcing expertise that it’s listed it at the top of its Web site. I hope The breakup blades cut both ways, and I hope Tiger's timing had an impact.
I’m sorry to say that it didn’t end with CBS. The Newshour covered it as well, at the end of the broadcast and for six or seven minutes compared to CBS's full 10. Still, the fact that it was mentioned at all was troubling to me. So too was the woman who reported on it, a writer for USA Today named Christine Brennan, who was beamed in from Vancouver, where she’s covering the Olympics. She was relieved, she said smugly, that she wasn’t invited to hear the statement in person, because she would have had to decline the invitation. According to her, it’s not cool to stage an event like that and not entertain questions from the reporters in attendance. I don’t think it’s cool to stage an event like that in the first place, for a book’s worth of reasons, and I think it's even less cool to cover it as a national crisis. But I did have a good laugh listening to a sports reporter cop journalistic principle, especially one who works for USA Today, which I believe will be at the front of the textbook – if there is one – for the course on the demise of newspapers in this country.
