You won't believe this, but Jason Whitlock came to the defense of Tiger Woods tonight. I know, right? Sounds crazy that he'd do that for Tiger. It's completely out of character for Whitlock do that sort of thing Woods.End sarcasm font.
If you don't want to go through the whole article of the SSBing of the article you're about to read, allow me to provide you a brief summary. Tiger is the most popular athlete in the world. He drove his car into a tree. He was taken to a hospital. He avoided talking to the police for an entire day. He admitted to cheating on his wife.
And the shameless media needs to check itself and get off Tiger and give a brutha some privacy, dawg!
Here's that subsequent SSBing I mentioned. See ya in there.
Tiger's real crime? Not playing the media's game
You lied to yourself. Tiger Woods never feigned perfection on or off the golf course. He demanded privacy. He refused to bow to the whims and desires of the media.
"He demanded privacy." That's downright adorable. Tiger was such a recluse up until this incident, never putting himself in front of the cameras while off the golf course. When EA Sports, General Motors, Accenture, Titelist, American Express, General Mills, Gillette, Gatorade, TAG Heuer, Buick, Asahi, Golf Digest and Rolex came to Tiger, his immediate response was, "I am sorry but I must decline your offers to give me vast amounts of money in exchange for using my talent and pristine image and reputation to sell your products, for I demand privacy from the public eye."
That's just Tiger. He doesn't bow to the whims and desires of the media. You know. Unless it suits him.
The latter is the crime he is paying for today. His "mistreatment" of the media is fueling the hysteria over his private transgressions and the casting of Woods as the second coming of Barry Bonds, an arrogant, insufferable jerk unworthy of his perch atop the sports world.
Yes, this is what happened. One of the world's most famous people is having an affair, and the media is only reporting on it because Tiger wouldn't bow to the media's whims and desires. Never before has the media ever salaciously hunted down information about a celebrity cheating on his wife before now. This is a groundbreaking day. Perhaps an entire industry that thrives on celebrity news will crop up because of this. It should be interesting to see what unfolds after Tiger has been so unfairly treated by the media.
Yes, the greatest golfer of all time made the same mistake as the greatest slugger: Tiger failed to show the proper amount of deference to the mainstream media.
Totally. Nailed it. The reason why the media wanted to know what happened when the world's most famous athlete drove his car into a tree, was taken to a hospital and ducked police for a day was not because it was newsworthy, but because the media didn't get deference from Tiger. I'm glad someone finally wrote this. Stupid media and their digging.
I have no gripe with the blogs and the gossip rags. Paying for and printing gossip for profit is what they do.
Hear that gossip that Tiger drove his tree into a car and his wife bashed in the windshield with a golf club? People shouldn't look into the circumstances behind that. It's unsavory.
The tabloids prey on the rich and famous. TMZ, US Weekly and the National Enquirer are not lying to their readership that they're going after Tiger because he's a role model, a teacher or a squeaky-clean product pitchman.
Yes, it's totally not news when a famous sports figure cheats on his wife. It should be condemned and not taken lightly.
Hey, here's what Jason Whitlock wrote about Rick Pitino getting caught cheating on his wife and apologizing to the media. Pitino's a straight up playa!
My problem is with the ax-grinding alleged journalists who are pretending Tiger has committed some crime against humanity and/or exposed himself as a fraud, less fit to shill for AT&T, American Express or Nike.
So last week at my monthly Tiger Woods Journalist Axe-Grinding Meeting at the Kiwanis Club, we decided that if Tiger Woods drove his car into a tree and may have possibly done so because his wife was bashing the crap out of his car, we'd look into it. But only because we have an axe to grind.
You don't really believe all the mainstream-media righteous indignation and cries for a detailed explanation of Tiger's Thanksgiving-night driving are because the media suspected Tiger committed a serious crime?
So we're clear here, Tiger drove into a GD tree, his wife beat the hell out of his automobile, he had to be taken to a hospital, he then avoided giving his statement to the police for 24 hours, and the reason why the media wanted answers was because there was a journalistic conspiracy by the axe-grinding society, and not because it's insanely newsworthy when a potentially scorned wife may have chased her extremely famous husband into a GD tree?
Tiger's critics — read them here, here, here, here, here, here and here — want the man publicly flogged and embarrassed, and they want him to beg the media to fix his public-relations problem. More than anything, the media, especially the print media, want to be needed. We're an insecure lot, dealing with festering childhood insecurities about popularity and sexuality.
I didn't read all those links -- one because the URL was dead -- but the general theme is after an incident that required police intervention, Tiger Woods went silent with the media, but more importantly, THE POLICE.
What Whitlock will have you believe is this -- the media wants to know about this story because writers want to be popular and have hangups about penises, vaginas and boobies. I mean, I think that's what he wants you to believe, but I'm completely lost at this point. Maybe I'm reading all those columns incorrectly, but I don't see anyone demanding Tiger beg them to fix his problem.
I wish I had the time to individually dissect the disingenuous ramblings of Rick Reilly, Sally Jenkins, Jay Mariotti, Mike Lupica and all the rest. But I don't.
You sort of do, actually. But whatevs.
I will, however, make time for Charlie Pierce, the acclaimed sports writer who began his pursuit of Tiger in 1997 and returned this week to gloat about it at Esquire.com. Pierce, if you remember, is the writer who made national headlines in 1997 by getting the then-21-year-old Woods to consent to an interview and building a story around hilarious and immature jokes cracked by Woods and Tiger-is-a-messiah hyperbole spewed by Earl Woods.
Man, when Whitlock is crazy, he's crazy, I'll give him that. Notice that Tiger didn't "agree" to the interview at the age of 21. Pierce "got him to consent" to it. You know, like Tiger didn't want to be in the public eye or get some attention. Oh no. Not hermit extraordinaire Tiger Woods. He was cajoled into the interview and tricked into making hilarious "How does my dictate" jokes. Tiger wasn't old enough to understand that what he says to the media could then be reprinted for everyone to see. Damn jealous, insecure, axe-grinding, sexless print media!
Pierce's latest offering is an I-told-you-so column. He rages that Tiger's puritan image is phony and points out that he wrote in great detail in 1997 that Woods was a scandalous, tail-chasing hound.
I don't know how many rich, famous and good-looking 21-year-old athletes/men Charlie Pierce has interviewed. The ones I've met have all been scandalous, tail-chasing hounds.That's right. EVERYONE who is 21, good-looking and a male athlete is a tail-chaser. It's always nice when your excuse for someone's behavior is A) everyone else is doing it and B) a completely false blanket statement.
Jason, this is Tim Tebow. He turned 22 in August. To put it mildly, he doesn't chase tail.
Jason, this is Ian Johnson. At the age of 21 and at the peak of his athletic fame, he proposed to his girlfriend.
However, you did say "the ones I've met" so maybe you need to meet more people. Or, you know, read about them.
After that, Whitlock weirdly goes back to mentioning writers and the sex they aren't having (60-year-old virgin is the phrase) and says Pierce hates Woods and Bill Simmons, and the media is out to get Tiger. Yeah, I don't know either.
Allow me to finish with what Whitlock closed with in his Pitino story which I know you didn't read all the way to the end. See if you notice a slightly different tone on the same type of story.
The problem is, the media, as far as we know, didn't roll around with Karen Sypher, get her pregnant, finance her insurance premium (abortion) and employ her soon-to-be husband. We reported and commented on those facts. ... When a playa gets busted, he/she changes the discussion from what he did wrong to something someone else did wrong and is more than likely untrue or exaggerated. A playa creates a false reality and then expects you to hold a debate about the lie he just concocted.
Just so we're clear before I return to my insecure virgin lifestyle room and go over the minutes to the last Axe-Grinding Meeting:
Tiger story: The media is to blame for Tiger talking about his affair.
Pitino story: Hey, it's not the media's fault Pitino's talking about an affair!
Tiger story: Tiger is a private person forced to tell his side of the story.
Pitino story: Dude's a playa just creating a false reality about a lie he concocted!
I think it's safe to say the differences between Whitlock's stances on these stories are pretty black and white.
Original Story:
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