Golf Question of the Week: Should the Golf Media Be Above Tabloid Journalism?
Had an interesting back & forth with a friend earlier this week over the recent Golfweek "noose cover" flap. By this point, pretty much everyone had had their say on the roots of the controversy (Kelly Tilghman's comments on Tiger Woods; Al Sharpton's and the Golf Channel's subsequent actions and reactions; Tiger Woods' initial response, etc.).
I was more intrigued by Golfweek's decision to resort to what PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem referred to as "tabloid journalism" by signing off on the noose cover in the first place. My initial objection to the choice of imagery was simple - while objective journalists can cover the news, and columnists and editors are fully within their rights to offer opinion about it in the proper forum, they've gone too far when they become the news while in the process of doing their jobs.
My friend, who lives and works in a Myrtle Beach golf market that takes great pride in providing the ultimate golf experience for the "everyman" and not just the elite, had a different take. In short, he wondered why the golf media should be any different than the rest. "Golf fan or no golf fan, we're all getting our news from the same places," he offered. "Isn't it a bit presumptuous and elitist, then, to expect the golf media to be held to a higher standard?"
Well, yeah. But so what? Call me too much of a traditionalist, but I still see golf as a gentlemen's and ladies' game (not necessarily in that order, of course), in the context that it's usually a safe haven from the tabloid-style controversies that have infected other major sports - steroids in baseball, cheating referees in basketball, the list goes on. And for the country club member and everyday muni-course hacker alike, golf has always been the reliable escape from such media-driven issues.
So when golf news becomes fodder for snarky AOL headlines, and shares equal time with Britney Spears and the rest of the Hollywood nitwit brigade?
Go ahead. Call me a traditionalist snob to your heart's content. Let me just watch the events in peace, and let Anderson Cooper & Co. move on to the next notorious cause célèbre.
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