I don’t know about you, but I don’t need any more news about Tiger Woods and his “situation.” I already know enough. More than enough, actually.
I’m in the camp that believes even celebrities are entitled to some privacy. But in the United States of Entertainment there was no way Tiger was going to get a pass. No, I’m not suggesting the lamestream media should have ignored the story. That would be asking way too much. But playing it down would have been just fine with me.
But there’s no way that was going to happen. Not in the U S of E.
Still, why the lurid fascination in some parts of the media with such an unimportant story? Why the all-too-happy devotion to getting out such uncomfortable information.? In a word – YOU.
Okay, maybe not you, but rather you, as in You the Public. You the public get off easy way too much of the time. They call it the boob tube. Yeah, and what does that make all those people watching – the ones who can’t get enough about what Tiger did to whom, or what Lindsay is up to, or whether Brittney was wearing underwear when she got out of the car? What does that make the public that eats this stuff up? Here’s a hint: BOOBS!
The media, mainly cable television, puts this stuff on because they know the public cares more about trysts and panties than wars and nukes. They know that a big chunk of the public cares more about Tiger’s voicemail messages than about Iran, Iraq and North Korea – combined.
I know, I know: I’m coming off as some highbrow elitist. Au contraire. I just think we’ve become a cheesy culture, which is something that will happen after years of being fed a steady diet of crappy information.
But every cloud has a silver lining, or so the saying goes, and so here’s my suggestion on how to turn this lemon into lemonade – excuse the mixed metaphors. Who’s driving the Tiger Woods story? TMZ and the Enquirer, two news outfits that get there first, stay the longest, and break lots of stories (like the John Edwards sex scandal, which the Enquirer got to before anyone else). Instead of covering stuff like that, let these tabloid journalists loose on some really important news — like global warming and the health care bill.
If those TMZ and Enquirer reporters were as aggressive on the global warming story as they were on the Tiger Woods story, we would have heard about those disgraceful climate-gate emails a long time ago. And we would have questioned the legitimacy of the “man is causing global warming and it’s going to kill all of us any day now” story a long time ago, too.
What’s really in the healthcare bill? I don’t know. But I might if those bulldogs over at TMZ went through all 12 million pages and told us what’s really in the fine print.
One more thing: if you didn’t get the “au contraire” joke four paragraphs up, too bad. It was really funny.
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Bernie, I usually only write you when I disagree with you. But in this column I agree with you wholeheartedly. The news media is being commercialized. Many of the TV news media must compete to the bottom, i.e. peoples’ prurient interests, to keep their ratings, i.e. their viability.
As you are aware, Fox News is just as guilty of this crass commercialization as any network. I once heard you allude to that on O’Reilly’s show – congratulations! Fox airwaves are filled with the latest gossip on public figures, especially if it involves prurient interests. Here, I focus on FNC because you take care of other networks (only occasionally you also focus your canons on FNC.)
O’Reilly is also guilty of this, although your buddy Jon Stewart is correct when he says that O’Reilly is “the skinniest kid in fat camp.” O’Reilly typically saves sexy segments unil toward the end of his show, however his teases frequently start at the beginning. As just one flagrant example, a model once tripped on the cat walk and in so doing exposed her panties. O’Reilly had a segment on this and showed a five second tease (panties and all) at least five times from the beginning of his show throughout. (I don’t know what the actual segment was about, because I flipped the channel by then.) O’Reilly does this type of thing a lot, but usually more subtly. And I think it’s no accident that he regularly has good looking, buxom commentators on as well (yes, they also have talent and offer substantive discussion).
I know the argument is that when he does hard news, he is responsible. The “fluff” is just to keep viewers who would otherwise not watch the entire show.
But the commercialization of the TV news media goes beyond the crass appeals to peoples’ prurient interests. It goes to talk shows. Here again, FNC is as guilty as other networks. And, here again, O’Reilly is the “skinniest kid in fat camp.” FNC, like other networks, knows that vitriol and confrontations are what enhance ratings.
This even transfers onto the “news” anchors at FNC, e.g. “Some say that Obama’s international trip is costing tax payers $200 million a day.” Technically this is true, but why not report that “some” say the Earth is flat and that 9/11 was an inside job?
FNC anchors sometimes have “fair and balanced” discussions about various issues with two guests. First, they have a love fest with the conservative/Republican guest, and then say “because we’re fair and balanced we have the liberal/Democrat view.” Then they fire hardballs at the other guests, interrupting them before they can make their point, only to fire other hardballs at them. These “discussions” are typically about things which put liberals/Democrats on the defensive. To FNC’s credit, the anchors have generally gotten much less blatant about this in the last year or so.
There are countless examples of FNC, including O’Reilly, sensationalizing/slanting news coverage. Do you include FNC in the MSM?
Too often, we try to intrude on the lives of celebrities, as if their private events belong to us.
However, once one person physically attacks another person, it does become our business. Regardless of his obviously wrong affairs, if Nordegren really did scratch Woods’s face and swing a golf club at him, she deserves the same legal penalty that would be received by a man who did those things to his wife.
Your views are very similar to mine. Going forward the GOP must include moderates as well as conservatives & attract Independents. We need a way to Unite these groups. I would be glad to assist I. Any way & many of my friends would as well.
The Feb. 2009 Stimulis was designed for election year 2010 . The voters have a short memory. I would like to purchase Lame Stream Media products.
Look forward to reading your web.
Rick Levin
Collingswood, N.J.
What news programs were you watching, Will Burns, that got yuou to hate Bush 2?
Hey Bernie, The Fox network, who you frequently appear on, also has Sean Hannity who does everything he can to influence his audience to hate the President of the United States. Fox News gives him Prime Time air time for this agenda. What a despicable network to employ this phony patriot who is truly a horrible American. It is strange you no not condemn Hannity and Beck too, with your selective outrage!
Let’s not even go there, shall we. We won’t talk about the 8 years of vicious hate that was spewed at George W. Bush by about 90% of the media including all 3 networks, MSNBC (The Obama Network), NYT just to name a few. It was HORRIBLE what the despicable media did to President Bush. Not only that, they caused a deep divide in the country with their Bush bashing. Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck are reporting inconvenient facts that this administration doesn’t want the public to know about and because the rest of the media work for Obama and don’t want to upset their boss. Here is an example: Kevin Jennings, Obama’s ‘Safe Schools Czar’ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/08/obamas-buggery-czar/. Sean Hannity has been following this story for months. Where is the rest of the media? They obviously could give a crap about the safety of our children.
Now now Kathie, remember all the great things Bush has done. He stopped 9/11… wait… he caught bin Laden… wait… Afghanistan… Iraq… Iran… North Korea… wait, he did nothing good for any of those issues. How about wars? Yep, he started 2 wars. How about the national Debt? Well, Bush doublied it. Bush should have had much more then hate directed at him. He and Cheney should be in prison!
I marvel at people like you who believe the only objective of the War on Terror is to capture Osama bin Laden.
Well, let me see if I have this right, Wil. We are not supposed to hate liars, thieves, dishonesty, bribery, prejudice, etc…..I get it!! Let’s just love them, but hate their behavior. Because, after all, they are really “nice” people, certainly misunderstood. If we could only all get together and have a beer in the White House garden. That’d fix it. Budweiser forgiveness. Now, why didn’t I think of that? Oh, because Barry thought of it first. After all, he is “the one.” I mean, look at all the people who voted for him. I believe his poll ratings (you know, those things we don’t believe when they go against us, but cite with reverential awe when they agree with us) are going down recently. Stay with me now………….If over half of the people voted for him, and now over half of the polled (statistical of course) don’t agtree with him, where do you think those people came from? I subtly suggest to you that many of those who voted for him might now have second thoughts. Whaddya think? Then again, only those who REALLY love the O-man can see what good he has done. The rest of us remain in the dark….ooops………wrong word………misguided may be beter.
I saw an interview on GW on CNN yesterday with Gore. He said that the “stolen” e-mails were some ten years old. The interviewer noted that some were only a month to a few months old. Gore sat motionless. The interviewer, rather than pressure Gore on his misstatement, went on with more questioning.
So the message to the less informed public was that these e-mails were of no consequence, making it still easier for the viewer to get on the GW bandwagon.
I would have said to Gore that if it was so easy to distort the facts on the e-mails, (over ten years old when they weren’t) wouldn’t many question his integrity on the more important GW distortions? Gore would have left the interview.
Why are the lamestream media so timid?
Bernie,
I want to comment briefly on Rupert Murdoch’s column in the Wall Street Journal (to which you posted a link on your home page). He briefly states that (1) the news industry should provide the information that people need, and (2) such information is not free. Being a former TV reporter myself, I don’t have a problem with (1), but if (2) were to be implemented on a widespread basis, people would get no news at all. Why? They’re used to it being, for the most part (excluding newspapers), free. Free news radio, free TV news (at least over-the-air), and now, free Internet news sites not limited to the big four TV networks.
I believe that, if the media provided people with the news they really wanted, we’d see nothing but wall-to-wall coverage of Tiger Woods and/or the next celebrity train wreck. Oh, wait, we see that now. And that is the biggest problem with the state of journalism today, the fact that people just don’t care. Would some pay to see real news on the internet? Possibly. I think they’d pay to see it on their mobile phones, for sure. But I think that’s a small minority compared to the crowd that wants to know the latest on Tiger, or Michael Jackson, or the Twilight crowd, or any of the other celebrities out there making a mess of their lives. And if journalists are reduced to providing the news people want, instead of the events making news and the facts behind those events (let’s forget about context for now), they’ll be nothing more than paparrazi and gossip columnists.
End rant.
Violent video games are responsible for America becoming a third-rate nation: the kids have by and large become illiterate violent idiots with no manners and no learning ability who are desensitized to violence in the media and real life. Those games are also exported to other (Muslim) countries where they serve for the training and the mental degradation of future terrorists.
Bernie: Don’t know nuttin bout dem Italians……no information. On Tiger: This white man don’t care that Tiger is bangin’ white women. Seems like the white women who are jumpin’ him don’t care either, except, of course, maybe his wife……..but she has recourse. I saw where some black man wanted to speak for how the black women might feel that Tiger wasn’t banging one of them, but don’t know what the sample population was for that poll. Tiger might be ecumenical enough to even try an Oriental woman, but they usually don’t kiss and tell. Let’s face it, Tiger just should have never gotten married, and none of this would have mattered. That’s where the real problem lies (lays?) Even the just man falls seven times daily…………why would we expect more of Tiger? For myself, I feel much better about Tiger now that I can see the warts! Makes him more human.
Hi Bernard =
I have always respected you as a journalist but your talk tonight on the Reilley show discussing the “going out on a limb” by Peter Van Sant in the legal case in Italy was outragious and a loss of ALL your future support and credibility to me!!!!!!! I will ensure that to others who are affiliated with future events of yours and Italian tourism!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Where is your guts vs popularity or justice?
I will turn “YOU OFF ” ANY time in the future unless I can get some explanation of your values vs. the chances for JUSTICE and real reason of truth for our future in your heart!!!!!!!!!
I Lived in Italy, a great culture, but political issues I will forward to other media if no response from you!
If our last hope to uncover the real news is TMZ than we are in real trouble. How about Fox, ABC, NBC do some news digging instead of channeling AP, Reuters and politician’s talking points.
To paraphrase the ancient Romans: food stamps and circuses!
An observation (that’s obvious).
The news fills the air with many, many, many boneheads who let their little head destroy what their big head spent years in developing their futures. And we “the sheeple” just can’t get enough of it.
You nailed this one Bernie. It was the Enquirer that nailed Senator Edwards when he was tomcatting around on his wife. I think if the MSM had done their job on that story that Hillary Clinton would likely have been the Democratic nominee instead of Barack Obama. I know she’s very much to the left, but if we had to have a Democrat in the White House, I have a feeling she would’ve been the better choice.
I used to think she’d come back like any number of Rocky Balboas. She was a fighter to the very end and won points from many of us on the right for representing at least something close to center. And besides that, it’s tough not to like Bill. Corkscrew fantasy and all, I’d still take her any day over the radical Democrats we have now. It may be good for her to be so on the outside if the President destroys his party…if he implodes. It would be really fun to hear her say ‘Obama did it’ as much as Obama says ‘Bush did it.’
America doesn’t like the health care bill. Obama’s poll numbers continue to slip. The liberal media are the biggest supporters of the manmade global warming theory, and we just discovered that the “scientists” that came up with it have been cooking the books since the beginning. That’s the news of late.
Given this, are you really surprised they jumped on Tiger Woods’ sex life?
Too bad for Tiger that he cannot launch Tomahawk missiles into Afghanistan. You know, to draw attention away from his sex scandal … not that that has ever been done before.
Hey Bernie, now that Comcast is taking over NBC Universal, will you be replacing Brian Williams while simultaneously heading up the NBC News Division?
Eh?
You could clean some serious house, I reckon.
Well, I see it like this. It is news worthy for a day because of how big he is and how he has put himself out in the public eye as a role model through all his endorsements. But out of respect for his wife the story should die after a day. I do agree with Jaspar Parenevik who introduced them, if he does it again use a driver next time.
Unlike the Bill Clinton scandal with “that woman, Miss Lewinsky” this is a private affair and is causing much pain to a family.
One last take on what would motivate Tiger to do this. He has for the most part led a very priveledged life. Most of it is due to hard work on his part so I will give him credit where credit is due, but I have friends who, while not as wealthy as him are still very successful and have led “charmed lives” and a sense of entitlement sets in for them. They see it as ok to have affairs because they are entitled to the trappings of success. Many of these guys have beautiful loving wives at home also but it does not matter. If it feels good, do it. There are two types of entitlement attitudes in this country, those who have little and feel entitled to a cut of what the successful make, and those who feel they are the annointed and feel entitled to be treated like royalty, (see congress/politicians)
I didn’t get the ‘au contraire’ joke but I liked the ‘use a driver joke.’ Seriously folks, I’m sure they’ll be able to iron this out soon and Tiger will be able to get out of this trap. And I’m confident he won’t lose membership in any club either.
And those intrusive reporters are all eighth holes.
Great column, Bernie. I think that we are not only the US of E (Entertainment) we are also the US of E (Extreme). We are the culture of extreme diets, extreme makeovers, extreme sports. So it would only be natural that extreme scandals follow. Since 9/11 has become just an “extreme” reality show and virtually forgotten, we are living in post 9/11 times. How long until we see extreme celebrity scandals? After all, a mere affair or murder is mundane stuff. We need a real doozy, like Britney Spears, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt practicing human sacrifice on the Dallas Cowboys, all while performing sex acts on horses and chickens? Do you think that would sell? Nah, I think that’s so last year. I know, how about catching a celebrity actually murdering his wife on video? Yeah. that’s the ticket. Like O.J. the sequel, only with the “extreme” angle. We get to see all the blood and gore and stuff on video! Right! Coming soon to the Fox Entertainment Network-Live Celebrity murders! It’ll be a ratings bonanza!
This country is going down the drain quick and if people don’t start paying attention to what’s really important we are all done for. So how about the media taking the high ground and only presenting quality entertainment and fair and balanced reporting of the news. Do you think we’ll ever see it? Not while there is a blessed buck to made!
To make the point even stronger, you could ask people who Nidal Malik Hasaan is and what happened with Tiger and I would be willing to bet that majority of people don’t know who Hasaan is.
Although that is not the fault of the media, it is the fault of the lack of want of information
Mr. Goldberg,
You may be a highbrow elitist, but I think we need a little more highbrow and a little less lowbrow in the media.
I was wondering if you’d comment on the Tiger Woods story. Thanks again for brightening my lunch hour.
Well, once again I couldn’t agree more. The truth is that unless there are people dying at the hands of terrorists IN AMERICA the majority of us are more interested in the celeb scandals. A lot of people believe, whether they know or admit it, that as celebrities these people work for us. As such we are entitled to know what they are doing and what color underwear they’re wearing. That’s why the TMZs and Enquirers of the world do so much digging to find the sexy dirty stories. If the healthcare bill had an affair or wasn’t wearing panties or paraded as a woman but ‘possibly’ had a penis we’d know all of the details of all 2000 pages.
Follow you on Twitter. . . OK to quote but please don’t attribute by name . . .
When I was in the Air Force years ago, they used the “reverse the roles” (walk a miles in someone else’s shoes) way of teaching about discrimination and harassment. Substituting white for black, female for male, often helps see a situation more clearly.
Try that with Mr/Mrs Tiger Woods. True the cops haven’t confirmed it’s a case of domestic violence, however, clues are there. If the couple had fought because the wife were the cheater, and the husband took up a golf club to beat her . . .
We certainly aren’t hearing from the liberal “domestic violence” groups.
If Tiger did cheat 3 times as I’ve heard, maybe a little beating about the head and shoulders with a golf club is in order.
Go get em, Erin! Use a nine-iron.
Here is some food for thought:
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%253A%252F%252Fnewsrealblog.com%252F2009%252F12%252F01%252Ftiger-woods-o-j-simpson-mike-huckabee%252F&h=a91b0c9eba30e38f2df7aad63cb3985f&ref=mf
There is definitely a double standard when it comes to domestic violence in this country.
http://www.tiny.cc/
In Massachusetts women don’t face domestic violence charges. Seriously. Stabbing and beating a man isn’t domestic violence. Seriously.
good point. it is the men at fault, 100% ask any woman