This week America was forced to watch a man fallen from grace apologize to 300,000,000 people, 99.9% of which he did not know in the slightest. I am of course talking about defamed golf star Tiger Woods, who has recently been in the American spotlight for not always staying faithful to his wife. He is arguably one of the biggest names in the sporting world right now, despite his infidelities, and that also happens to be his reason for apology.
This assignment is meant to point out the various news values of a certain news story or article, but this particular even struck for a different reason; it has absolutely no news value whatsoever. As with any celebrity Tiger Woods has ceased to be a person in the American eye. He is instead Tiger Woods the golfer, Tiger Woods the name, Tiger Woods the brand, and that is why he was forced to apologize for a victimless crime that if he were not a famous person, the social contract would all but force us to sweep under the rug.
I am not saying that it is okay to cheat on ones spouse, but simply that Tiger Woods has much more important people to apologize to than the American people. This is one of the many cases where America needs to sober up from it’s reality T.V. daze and realize that Tiger Woods is not an authority figure. He did not lie to the American people, he did not tell us how to live our lives, he did not instruct us on what is or is not immoral. This is not news, because news effects us all. News is an event that people should look at and think about how it affects them. News is not gossip.
I so agree! It's gotten to where I turn the page or change the channel if I see/hear anything about Tiger Woods.
ReplyDeleteBut there are a couple of news values here, beyond the "prominence" value that goes with being well-known. There's the novelty/unusualness value, since this behavior so goes against his reputation. And there's conflict, between him and his wife obviously, but also between fans who are talking about this (and who apparently have nothing better to do with their lives) and sponsors who are dropping him, etc.
8.5/10