By now you have probably heard that the Golf Channel’s Kelly Tilghman joked on-air that in order for younger golfers to beat Tiger Woods they should “lynch him in a back alley.”
And you have also probably heard that Golfweek magazine’s Dave Seanor hanged himself with the cover to the left.
On SportsCenter this morning they reported that PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem called the cover “tabloid journalism.” While I disagree and side with Seanor who said, “We chose it because it was an image we thought would draw attention to an issue we thought deserved some intelligent dialogue," a quick Google News search turns up over 550 other legitimate media outlets including the Times covering Finchem’s “tabloid” remark. And now in this post we are bringing it up. Doesn’t this make us all tabloids?
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Comments on this entry:
As much as I condemn this magazine for allowing this, I also blame Tiger Woods for blowing this off. This isnt the first racial slurs have been thrown at him, but others who look up to him wish that had said something. If not, the wake up call will come as it does for us all and how we respond is how we are really received by the public forever. Plz Tiger dont become the joke!
Whatever, Tiger had the intelligent dialog and he's moved on but sitting here I'm wondering when you are going to do a Sybil type post on Herschel "It's Tuesday I must be Morrie" Walker !
As an African American, the image of a noose obviously offends me. As a journalist, I can understand the decision process that went into choosing the image for the cover of GolfWeek, even if I don't entirely approve of its use. It's too bad that the editor got canned, not so much because he didn't deserve it but because he's somewhat of a scapegoat considering he wasn't the only one in the room when they were debating the cover. (And where was his boss during this process?) But the topic of race in golf is still one that needs to be dealt with, and a topic that goes beyond one young lady's ill-advised quip. And if nothing else, this cover has brought that discussion into very sharp relief.
This situation also brings home the point that magazine covers still have the power to be provocative and controversial, whether in major ways (GolfWeek) or minor (Tiffany Fallon as Wonder Woman on the cover of Playboy; see below post).