Tiger's Indefinite Leave Clippings, New Year's Eve Edition
I continue to be confounded by WESH 2's report quoting Sgt. Kim Montes about Tiger's interview with police almost a month after the FHP said it was done talking about the case. WESH reporter Bob Keeling's on air report can be seen here, and in it are a few more quotes from Montes about Tiger's condition and the rumor mill:
"The only thing we noticed was a fat lip."
"No other facial injuries…no reason to believe he was the victim of domestic violence."
"All these rumors of these injuries are false."
As for the source that gave the chain email rebutted by the FHP credibility, Furman Bisher has filed what Deadspin called an "adorable" follow-up blog post. Bisher writes:
It was not intended for anybody but those who are plugged into my blog—which is free of charge. No subscription charges are involved. Since I retired from daily columning, I simply like to write a few things now and then, and stay in touch with friends, and pass on information from trusted sources. Anybody else who got it is an intruder, no friend of mine. God knows, how 43,000+ people who have nothing to do but peep in on such an insignificant website as mine irritates me.
That, I suppose, illustrates my electronic illiteracy.
Pretty much.
But, if you are among the offended, then stay off my website. It’s for friends only.
Someone just made his treehouse off limits to the other kids in the neighborhood!
No less absurd in the electronic illiteracy department is former Golfweek editor and now amateur blogger Dave Seanor lashing out at "amateur bloggers" for picking up Bisher's post and alerting the world to the idiotic chain email.
As with most bloggers – including Examiners – his prose is not edited. Forget the fact-checking aspect. In this case, an editor’s touch for nuance would have served Furman well, introducing the email pass-along as amusing parody and nothing more. But it wasn’t positioned as such, was picked up by amateur bloggers eager (read desperate) to fill space during a quiet holiday week.
Mind you he files this on Examiner, one of the great purveyors of internet junk where bloggers are paid by the hit. Please, continue digging...
Of course, those bloggers aren’t subject to editing filters, either, so the post continued to be passed off as “news,” when in fact the only news value to it was the traction it gained in the blogosphere.
Had Seanor clicked on the very links under his own post he would have noted that it was Deadspin--most definitely not an amateur blog--that first alerted the world to the ridiculousness of the chain email and later pointed out the absurdity of Bisher claiming it to be credible. He then links to amateur bloggers like Ryan Ballengee, Stephanie Wei and yours truly who in our own unique ways pointed out the problem with the email that Bisher suggested was credible. None of the "amateur bloggers" Seanor attempts to implicate as mainstream purveyors of the chain email ever attempted to pass it off as news.
No, the blame would go to the person who initially wrote it, the discussion board it was posted on and the 30 million or so who passed it around. But only Mr. Bisher had the credibility and audacity to pass it off as newsworthy.
Iliana Limón in the Orlando Sentinel files a more thoughtful analysis of the chain email's impact and offers this from Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute:
Like Snopes.com's co-founder, McBride cautioned against buying into the rumors without verification.
"I think professional journalists have a responsibility to bring another level of scrutiny to the e-mail," she said. "Can you name the original source? Can you confirm the origination of the information? If you can't do either of those, the information is suspicious."
Ryan Ballengee will always remember 2009 as the holiday that he spent picking apart a UC Davis study on the economic impact of Tiger's accident and fallout, concluding pretty impressively that there is "no direct corollary between Woods' actions and the movement of stocks."
And we'll leave the last word to Scott Michaux, who comes to Tiger's defense:
But this notion that Woods held himself up as some sort of perfect human specimen is ludicrous. Show me a single one of those Accenture, Gillette, Buick, Nike or Tag Heuer ads that includes his wife or children. Name one time that he ever volunteered any private-life insight other than the cliched responses to oft-repeated questions that were lifted from the boiler plate that any one of us would use regardless of our own marital or parental discord/bliss.
Woods never flaunted his family life in the way that Phil Mickelson does. That's no besmirch on Mickelson. That's simply who Mickelson is. His professional and private lives are intertwined like nobody else's.
Tiger has never tried to be like Phil. He's never apologized for his salty outbursts. He's never held his family up as the model. He's never tried to be Gandhi.
Woods' single-minded public focus has been to be nothing more than the greatest golfer who ever lived. And in that mission he has yet to fail.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009 at 08:46 PM 19 Comments | in Golf Media, Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods Accident
Reader Comments (19)
His image as a family man clearly is something that his marketing team sought to promote. They did this rather successfully, if you ask me. Tiger Woods had a great Q rating or whatever they call it, before he got married, but there's no doubt that the family man image is something that he and his team sought to exploit. They just didn't have Elin in the kitchen flipping pancakes while Tiger reached for the Mrs. Butterworth's. (Probably a Freudian thing here with the Perkins waitress, sorry Tiger)
As for Dave Seanor, give me an official break. He ought to get credit for explaining how this email was of suspicious provenance and that it was clearly parody. I'm not sure how many people absorbed the satire, however, since a number of people posted here in a manner that suggested that they may have believed some or all of it.
Any blogger is fair game for criticism, to be sure, but Dave Seanor of all people, deserves a bit of a break. Remember, he's the guy who lost his job as the editor of Golfweek after he (and others at the magazine) decided to put a noose on its cover, to symbolize the jam that Kelly Tilghman got herself into after the "lynch him in an alley" reference to Tiger Woods. Kelly Tilghman still pushes her vanilla-bland commentary on the Golf Channel even though she is the one who made the stupid comment about the formerly untouchable, god-like Tiger Woods. She got suspended for a week, which was about the time that Tiger and his people let Fuzzy Zoeller twist in the wind after his inelegant chicken dinner reference at Augusta. Some made some mileage on the completely b.s. racist angle in that story, too.
Dave Seanor? He gets unceremoniously fired at a particularly bad time for a journalist to be out of a job, all for cover art that didn't even refer to Tiger Woods. Everybody jumped on him as if he was making a racist decision for allowing the cover art. He was treated in a manifestly unfair fashion and not a single person in sports media has ever (to my knowledge) come to his defense in any meaningful way.
And yes, Dave Seanor is a friend of mine. There's your bias check, Bunky.
Happy New Year to all.
tlavin: Neither Tilghman nor Seanor were punished because of Tiger Woods. Tilghman's comment was a casual joking reference to a deeply disturbing history (substitute "Lorena Ochoa" and "rape" if you'd like to measure the offensiveness), and the Golfweek cover was an edgy visual that took a big risk to get attention and backfired big-time. I'd defend the noose editorially, but from a business standpoint it was a reckless decision at a really bad time. None of this has a thing to do with TW; the reactions would have been the same if the comment or cover were about Lee Elder or Calvin Peete.
But this notion that Woods held himself up as some sort of perfect human specimen is ludicrous. Show me a single one of those Accenture, Gillette, Buick, Nike or Tag Heuer ads that includes his wife or children.
Mr. Michaux conveniantly overlooks The Cliffs at High Carolina who use Tiger as a spokesman for its planned gated community. They removed Tigers front page quote of the family benefits of living there that would be perfect for his family but have kept the video of Tiger extolling its family values living environment.
You make a lot of good points. There is definitely a line on the business vs. editorial front that was crossed at Golfweek. I'm not defending the decision to run the cover; that's a losing argument. But I do believe that "Tiger factors" were at play in this story. Tilghman's comment was thoughtless and she surely wasn't coming from a racist point of view when she said it. But it was insensitive and rude and wrong and she apologized and Tiger went so far as to call her a friend. She got an appropriate "vacation" and she's gone on to bore us all. The high-minded, sanctimonious crowd rushed to fan the flames on the noose cover. We all know that lynching is a terrible part of our country's past, but are there any serious thinking people who actually believe that Tilghman or Seanor were making any decisions based on the fact that Tiger's heritage is part African American? I don't think so. That doesn't defend or excuse their mistake, but it surely should have mitigated the punishment. Tilghman's "punishment" was a suspension and an on-air apology. Seanor got hammered for improperly choosing cover art to illustrate her mistake. That strikes me, still, as patently unfair in terms of the severity of the sanction.
Sorry to dredge that old story up. I'm sure everybody involved wishes that it wouldn't generate any more discussion, but everything about Tiger is up for re-analysis, it seems to me.
Is there a feud brewing between Sal and Geoff? Do they consider themselves friendly rivals? I'd love to hear Geoff's response to this..I don't see that he's done anything wrong other than collate all the available info/rumors about TW.
Sal is illiterate but often has a good gut take on things, and has praised Geoff's work in past, sometimes grudgingly. Maybe Geoff doesn't want to dignify this with any comments but wonder what his take is on being blamed as part of the illegit press inflaming the Woods story.
Overall I disagree with Sal's take on this one the phony email was clearly bogus and Bisher gave it some steam but didn't or don't see how it took on much new life because of that or Geoff's handling...since Geoff's and Sal's are two of the top golf sites it is interesting tho to see one attacking the other with such venom.
The hoax Tiger Inc. perpetrated on the international viewing public is right up there with the "Quiz Show Scandals" of the 1950s. Cleary Tiger/Steiny/IMG were selling an image; we were taken along for the ride, never warned, never disabused. (We were willing accomplices.) It was simply a vast, conspiratorial corporate misrepresentation of an individual's focus, single-mindedness and dedication to his goals and craft. (Yes, none of the ads said, "And he's an impeccable family man.") Yes, those family photos (two sets, at least, I believe one after each kid's birth) are prima facie evidence. I believe Woods Inc. requested that any media using the Charlie images make a donation to the Tiger Woods Foundation. So, literally, he knew exactly what he was selling.
Rather than focus on Senor, I think Bisher is more interesting. The guy is like, what, 103? More to the point, however, he represents a very interesting phenomenon. For years, many newspapers (particularly in the south) had these retired-on-the-job sports columnists who would pontificate from on high. (Examples: Edwin Pope at The Miami Herald, Hubert Mizell, St. Pete Times, etc.). Some of these guys told pretty good stories on occasion, wrote serviceable columns. But others were pretty lazy, had the advantages of tenure (and first-name familiarity with the pro/college football coach) and were simply good ole boys who happened into their jobs. Pope, for instance, took up a chair at The Masters every year and never offered a slim insight beyond "the dogwoods are blooming and azeleas popping." Really! I read the guy for years just to see if he could make me think and, in retrospect, i can't remember a single thing he ever wrote. That's a stunning record.
The point is they are gone. Their newspapers (and travel budgets) don't cut a wide swath, don't have the influence, don't occupy the same prominence in society that they once had. I understand you can't paint all these old guys with the same brush -- Murray of LA was obviously several cuts above as a wordsmith, observer, humorist, etc. -- but is there anyone out there who has read Bisher for the last 20 years who can offer an opinion? The fact that he couldn't recognize a chain letter/hoax email is pretty funny. Can't say whether it's a sign of his dotage, or a general cluelessness that spanned his career.
Be a great story for SI or GW on the dueling bloggers!! Get to the bottom of it Jim Herre or Geoff Russell!!
styled: There is no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny either. You'll get over it someday.
Yes I do think she might have used that word if she was talking about David Toms. I think it was inadvertent and wholly unrelated to Tiger's race. I would have to believe that she is some sort of crazy person if she purposely used the word lynch with regard to a black man. I choose to believe that she isn't crazy or crazy racist, just an uninspired and uninspiring broadcaster.