Seriously, what is their problem?
Just because some guy says 12 are dead – doesn’t mean you post it. Even Rupert Murdoch should know that (maybe not).
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
The New York Post Gets It Wrong… Again
The Integrity Of Golf?
The PGA and professional golf, in general, is an absolute joke.
How many times during The Masters did we hear that Tiger Woods should withdraw himself from the tournament in order to protect the ‘integrity of golf’?
This is such bullshit.
First of all, the officials missed the call and it wasn’t until after Woods gave an interview that some caller alerted the Augusta Nationalist (my spelling) Golf Club officials that Woods incriminated himself.
Some caller? I can imagine this was the way the scene played out:
Augusta National Golf Course – 19th Hole
Inside a paneled lounge, several white men with southern drawls are drinking scotch and smoking cigars. There is a general laughter that never seems to die down.
Suddenly, a perspiring office worker bursts into the lounge.
OFFICE WORKER: Gentlemen, someone has just called and said Tiger Woods admitted during an interview to stepping back a yard to take a drop.
An Augusta Member (we’ll call him Scooter) drops his smile.
SCOOTER: Aw, Bubby, can’t ya see we’re having our scotch and smoking our cigars. Tiger’s a good ol’ boy and a surprisingly good golfer.
OFFICE WORKER: But more people are calling in. And they’re Tweeting, too!
Another member (we’ll call him Hootie) puts down his scotch and turns grave.
HOOTIE: Tweetin’? Gentlemen, we had better address this issue. Can someone please get a copy of that videotape or film of this interview and set it up in the Hogan Room anti-chamber for our immediate review? Bring your glasses, gentlemen. I have decided that scotch will be allowed for one time only in the Hogan Room.
Etc etc etc (I could go on forever with these guys).
We all know what happened. Tiger got a retroactive two stroke penalty and basically was removed from the tournament – at least in spirit. Commentators no longer praised his play or got excited when he made a good shot.
Golf Channel analysts called his decision to keep playing a disgrace and an error in judgment that will follow him the rest of his career and taint his legacy.
Oh, really? What would have made the situation right?
Maybe they should have put him in stocks outside of Butler Cabin for the duration of the tournament and he could have been released by the new champion.
Maybe Tiger should have performed hara-kiri like a Japanese samurai on the 18th green because of what he has done to the great game of golf.
Has the great game of golf and its legacy of racism and exclusionary policies really taken a hit here?
You know what hurts the integrity of golf? The Augusta National Golf Club and its past policy of excluding women and minorities and doing VERY LITTLE to correct the problem (adding Lynn Swan and Condoleezza Rice doesn’t really get you there).
You know what hurts the integrity of golf? The hypocrisy of all those who point a finger at Tiger Woods for cheating on his wife when half the field at The Masters is on wife number 2 or 3 or 4 – with countless girlfriends in between (or during).
You know what hurts the integrity of golf? Old white men commenting that the sole black golfer competing in the tournament should quit when you know they wouldn’t ask that of Fred Couples if he committed the same infraction.
You know what hurts the integrity of golf? Playing a tournament at a club that was founded by a man – Cliff Roberts, the first Augusta Chairman – who once said: “As long as I’m alive, all the golfers will be white and all the caddies will be black.”
You know what hurts the integrity of golf? Those crappy looking green jackets that are mythologized to appear as though they were made by the hands of God.
The Masters – ‘a tradition like no other’ – and golf, in general – had better change its ways or it will be going the way of the dinosaur and the Republican party before too long.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
Aereo Will Fail
Make no mistake – there is no chance Aereo will survive longer than two or three years. That’s a best-case scenario.
Broadcast Networks are dying (it’s true) and will be dead in their current form within five years.
In five years, who is going to pay $8 a month for nothing?
Where are all those little antennas going to go once Broadcast Networks cease to exist?
What sort of business launches with this sort of insane hype that, at most, will only exist for five years?
A Barry Diller company, of course.
The only useful purpose Aereo has is that it will play a part in hastening the inevitable demise of Broadcast Networks.
That’s something, I guess.
I wrote a couple of years ago that Broadcast Networks were in denial (BROADCAST NETWORKS: ON DEATH AND DYING – April 1, 2011). That the executives were longing for the old days of The Big Five.
Now they’re just trying to survive at any cost.
New shows aren’t working. The upfronts next month will be terrible (regardless of what the networks will actually say in their trumped up press releases and over-the-top presentations).
But things aren’t completely dire.
Chase Carey has the right idea but he shouldn’t say that he’ll make FOX a cable channel as a threat to Aereo. He should make FOX a cable channel because it would be a good business decision. It’s really the ONLY business decision.
It is time for Broadcast Networks to accept that the world has changed. “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” is no longer the number one show. And new shows like “How To Live With Your Parents (For The Rest Of Your Life)” will not save you now.
Basic cable and becoming just another button on the infinite media grid of the future is the only chance ABC, CBS, MBS, NBC and FOX have to survive.
Love him or hate him (most hate him), Barry Diller has, once again, disrupted an industry in desperate need of change.
If he wasn’t so gooey I would be cheering him on.
For $20 million dollars, he is forcing a $50 billion industry to join the 21st century. Now that’s getting a bang for your buck.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
P.S. – Who knew Barry Diller enjoyed fishing so much? Here’s a great story of a recent fishing trip.