The Tiger Woods Coverage Needs To End

I am a golf nerd. I worked at a golf course throughout middle school and high school and played almost every day during most summers. I wake up early and watch the European tour, and stay up late to watch events in Asia. Golf has been a refuge from the idiocy of American culture. And then, last week happened.

Every media outlet rabidly pursued this “story” and people cannot get enough. Why? I think it has a lot to do with what Brian Eno describes as “the firehose mentality” of American journalism. Public attention is constantly whipped up in a delusional frenzy and pointed by the media towards the next relevant target. One target can’t last long, though, otherwise the mania might calm down a bit, hurting ratings and page hits. We can’t keep talking about health care: too old! Don’t print a story about the greedheads in the financial sector looting the Treasury: too depressing! And Dubai? Too hard to understand! How about a guy who may have cheated on his wife and then got into a car accident, the cause of which is unclear? Just right.

Did people learn nothing from the Duke lacrosse case? Would it be possible to hold off on running conjecture as fact? Apparently not. A lot of people get angry when they hear Glenn Beck “asking questions” or “raising concerns” about Barack Obama being a wild-eyed, hammer-and-sickle wielding communist. These same people are eager to lap up conjecture about Tiger’s personal life. There is no difference. It is all disgusting, yet it is what passes for serious news in a country like the US. There was a graphic on this story in the Wall Street Journal. Isn’t that supposed to be a serious newspaper? Unlike the Duke lacrosse case or the Kobe incident, there no crime was committed. There are no underlying social issues. This incident is just the ugly manifestation of America’s degenerate celebrity-worship. If you still have faith in the future of Western civilization, more power to you.

–Kevin Todd