Wondering when golf journalists got so squeamish
Eric Deggans |
April 6, 2010 8:01 a.m.
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That much was obvious from the oddly detached, occasionally chummy, rigidly controlled press conference Woods indulged Monday afternoon at Augusta National.
I don’t know what rules journalists faced just in earning a credential to step inside that hallowed room. But you got the sense everyone decided they weren’t going to say the words adultery, mistress, text message or sexual addiction anywhere within sight of Woods or the Masters tournament officials zealously working to keep any real news from breaking out.
This despite the fact that Woods’ problems led to a car crash that might have ended his life, along with threatening his marriage, a billion-dollar collection of endorsements and the playing career of the greatest golfer now in the game.
I get it guys (and gals). It’s a drag to have your editors asking you to match items published on TMZ and anyone who considers themselves a real sports journalist would rather ask pointed (and easily deflected) questions about performance-enhancing drugs than the 16th woman alleging Woods regularly paid her for sex.
To be sure, the Masters officials made any real questioning difficult as possible.
Craig Heatley, chair of the Masters media committee, wielded his power as press conference moderator like a billy club, playing whack-a-mole with any journalist obsequious enough to stumble into a real question. Ask about whether his use of Ambien played a role in the November car crash that made his personal life a global news story – or get him to admit that wife Elin won’t be at the Masters this week – and you get moved along, thank you very much.
But ask about whether he’ll make it to the Ryder Cup this year or how he’s been received by his golfing buddy peers and you’ll get a relaxed Tiger — a champion who veers cannily from well-crafted talking points about taking responsibility and respecting the game to comfortable musings about his training regimen and his playing partners. No wonder he admitted during the press conference that he wasn’t particularly nervous.
Hit experienced journalists with this kind of stonewalling, and they have a ready response – asking the follow up question that the previous guy didn’t get a chance to uncork.
I’ve seen audiences of journalists turn into snarling packs of annoyed newshounds, demanding as one that a source answer a reasonable question during a press conference that the subject seemed intent on evading.
But this was a group of journalists who seemed nearly as weary of this subject as Woods himself. Everyone here knew why this press conference was broadcast live on major news outlets and anticipated for weeks – and they wanted out of this Twilight Zone of gossip and stalking paparazzi, too.
So when one writer asked why Woods never sat down with police and was told, “I did everything with the letter of the law” nobody stood up to say, “As a follow-up to that guy’s question, how can you take responsibility for your actions if you won’t tell the cops why you got in a car wreck?”
Or when Woods responded to a question about what he may have done to damage his legacy by waxing philosophically about his dad’s philosophy of helping yourself before you can help others, no one stood up to say, “That’s wonderful, but you didn’t really answer the question.”
Or when Woods talked his father’s death and his children’s birth putting “things in perspective,” nobody stood up to ask, “If that stuff put things in perspective, why did you continue cheating on your wife?”
In fact, some journalists went through some serious circumlocutions to avoid saying words like “sex scandal” or “cheating,” asking “Did you ever try to quit whatever it was you were doing” or “When did you make the decision this was something you’d have to deal with?”
I couldn’t help wondering when journalists got so squeamish they couldn’t ask a direct question about the biggest scandal in recent sports history.
I did notice that many of the questions I suggested journalists ask two weeks ago did get tossed around.
A question on whether it might be too soon for him to return to golf elicited the admission that wife Elin would not attend the tournament. A query about whether his secret life might have actually helped his golf game yielded a pointed quote: “The fact that I’ve won golf tournaments is irrelevant…compared to the harm I’ve caused.”
Woods also talked at length on the one subject both he and the golf journalists found most comfortable – questions about his connection to Dr. Anthony Galea, a physician suspected of giving human growth hormone to some athletes. Woods, who denied ever taking any illegal drugs – wonder what the other women have to say about that? – said Galea treated him for his knee problems.
And though he admitted using Ambien and other prescription drugs to deal with knee pain and the death of his father four years ago, he curtly cut off any questions about his state during his November car accident – amid widespread circulation that he was disoriented from use of the drug during his incident.
Woods also maintained he’s never gotten treatment for prescription drug addiction, though he won’t say publicly what the rehab was for.
Small wonder this was such a snoozer. Woods called many journalists in the room by name, noting about midway through the Q&A that despite seeing some critical articles, “I know a lot of you in here are my friends and will always be my friends.”
Odd statement to make in a roomful of journalists ostensibly dedicated to providing incisive coverage without fear or favor.
But the pros in the room knew that Woods is a relatively young man and likely will stand at the top of the golf world for a long time. In the end, a bold question about a sordid subject just wasn’t worth losing a Masters press pass or angering the sport’s biggest star.
Which reminded me: Isn’t that sense of entitlement and protection what helped get Woods into this mess in the first place?
Eric Deggans is TV and Media Critic for the St. Petersburg Times and a 1990 graduate of the Indiana University School of Journalism. His work has also appeared in the Washington Post, Village Voice, VIBE magazine, Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press, Chicago Sun-Times and many other publications. He also writes a blog on media, The Feed, at www.blogs.tampabay.com/media.
April 6th, 2010 at 7:45 pm
Maybe the journalists are like a lot of us former Woods fans: we concluded weeks ago he’s a heel and a dissembler, and just don’t care to hear him opine any longer. Of course, you’re spot on in that the journalists are being paid to have to care and to be professional. But maybe they’ve caught on that the rest of us, while we may still marvel at the golf talent of Woods, no longer have the zeal to watch him at all costs. And need no additional information to sustain our conclusion.
April 6th, 2010 at 9:51 pm
The incessant drumbeat for Tiger Woods to reveal himself to sportswriters–the new self-proclaimed moral arbiters of society– is growing ridiculous. Deggans, if Tiger sits down and explains his life to you, will you be happy? I watched a 35- minute press conference that essentially answered most reasonable questions a fan or casual observer of the sport would want to know about the events in Tiger’s life since the Thanksgiving episode. Now understand, I’m a journalist who to my own consternation helped create some of the tabloid journalism that now pervades our media culture. Frankly, I’m growing tired of journalists who keep professing that there are more questions Tiger needs to answer and anybody who’s not taking him to task is ‘squeamish.’ Your position is risible. This story has gone from being something legitimately understood as an incident that revealed a secret life of one of the most famous athletes on earth to a cottage industry of mistresses, lawyers and sex addiction experts. However, it’s NOT a sports story and the continued pressure by people to make it so grows more transparent as the rest of planet Earth has come to that conclusion and reminded themselves that what Tiger does is put a small ball in a round hole from long distances; for which he’s well compensated. The idea that he was breaking his marriage vows, consorting with porn stars and his garden-variety satyriasis is another matter for the tabloid press and those who want to make hay about our moral decline. So please stop these ridiculous columns about how your fellow sportswriters are falling down on the job because there’s some other thing you need to know about Tiger’s private life. Between you, Sally Jenkins, and some other idiotic sports columnists who made it their bailiwick to opine endlessly on this matter, I’m starting to understand why athletes can barely tolerate your presence.
April 7th, 2010 at 10:43 am
The assumption that golf journalists were ever not meek beyond belief seems in error. What did they do with Daly’s drinking? Aggressive questioning? Never. Did they ever question Gary Player for repping a racist regime on the links? No. Historically timid. Even by sports journalism standards.
April 7th, 2010 at 11:34 am
A few questions.
When did the Golf Writers know about Tiger Wood’s hypocrisy? Did they discover it after the accident? Are we really supposed to believe it if the answer is yes?
Are Golf Journalists so lazy and so protective of their access, and their extremely easy “I-worked-twenty-years-to-get-this-assignment” job that they are willing defraud and decieve the public?
How can any competent person calling themselves a professional rationalize such hypocrisy in a public figure like Woods?
Nobody complains about NBA stars engaging in risky or reckless sexual behavior. Then again most NBA stars don’t try to pretend that their something they’re not. Hence the hypocrisy argument.
Was there a desire to protect Tiger Woods for the good-of-the-sport?
Is there any journalist willing to answer any of these questions?
April 7th, 2010 at 11:44 am
I’m just beyond confused at this point. Tiger is not the president of the United States or the CEO of a Wall Street bank holding thousands of people’s life savings. He is an athlete. This is not a situation where uncovering the truth is going to save lives or change history. These reporters aren’t Woodward and Bernstein. Ascertaining what caused Tiger to crash his car is not the stuff of Pulitzers, it’s the stuff of tabloids. It’s a misplaced notion that the sports journalists job is to out the scum that infests their beat, it’s to give us the low down on sports. If you want to muckrake, hop over to the local/national government beat where people’s misdeeds actually matter and cause deaths and loss of livelihood. What is wrong with SPORTS journalists asking a SPORTS personality questions about SPORTS? I, and I think most sports fans who don’t feel the need to read TMZ every day, were 10x more interested in hearing about his putting than text messages.
By asking that prying follow up question and embarrassing Tiger further, nobody is going to enjoy golf more or approach their life differently the next day. All that will be accomplished is that tawdry detail seeking, US Weekly reading, non-sport fans will be able to add one trashy talking point to their 100th Tiger themed dinner conversation. We know he is a scumbag…finding out that he is one degree greater of a scumbag than we thought means little to nothing.
If anything, these reporters should be kissing Tiger’s feet for giving them material to fill their 800-1000 words every day for the last few months. He owes them nothing, they owe him everything.
If you are so mad, Eric, don’t tune into the tourney this weekend, don’t buy Nike clubs, and don’t buy Golf Digest or Sports Illustrated. But please stop acting like there is some objective good in torturing scum bag athletes with prying questions. Without scumbag athletes, none of them have a job, because there would be very very few athletes left. Nobody’s life gets better, a few people’s lives get worse for learning new, hurtful information (Elin, Tiger’s mom and children to name a few), and an unbearable atmosphere of negativity is perpetuated.
I love the game of golf and the way Tiger plays it. I want to know how he is hitting his irons, how far his drives are going, and if his putter feels sharp after 4 months off. If I wanted to know about ambien and text messages, I’d watch “Gossip Girl” and “90210″.
April 8th, 2010 at 1:51 am
I too am a journalist and was appalled watching the news conference. Is it not the job of journalists to try to uncover drug use by an athlete? Is it not the job of journalists to uncover hypocrisy, all of it, from an athlete who crafted a public image, having nothing to do with golf, that was the foundation of Mr. Wood’s record fortune? Mr. Wood’s fortune of perhaps a billion or more dollars was built least on his golf winnings and most on endorsements that fed off his manufactured image that millions of people around the world accepted. The man is a walking set of issues and questions, none of which were answered by his first solo monologue, and the recent subsequent performance before a submissive group of reporters who failed their publics.
pmh
April 9th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
“As a follow-up to that guy’s question, how can you take responsibility for your actions if you won’t tell the cops why you got in a car wreck?”
Huh? Explaining to the cops is how you “take responsibility” (whatever that means), even when the cops, apparently, don’t need/want to know? Ask that question in a news conference, and you deserve to be ignored.