Tiger Woods, Rachel Uchitel, and The Water Hydrant

Has the world of mass-media news really grown so thin on material that a golfer who crashes his car is deserving of the front page in so many of the world’s papers and websites?

If Tiger Woods was not the number one golf player in the world would this even be a story? Before we answer that, let’s look at the facts:

Tiger Woods pulls out of his drive way at around 3 in the morning. At a speed of less than 35mph he hits a fire hydrant and then a tree. He receives some facial cuts and bruises and is taken to hospital because he is drifting in and out of consciousness. There is no suggestion of alcohol or drugs in his system and he was even wearing his seat belt. All in all, the car seems to have come off worse than Woods himself. Substitute

Image via Wikipedia

the name Tiger Woods for Derek Jacobs and there is no story. But then there’s the Rachel Uchitel angle. Speculation, and that is the word that has to be stressed here, is rife that Woods and his wife, Elin Nordegren, were having ‘marital difficulties’, and that Woods had started an affair with Uchitel, whom he met in a club.

Even if this were all true: if Woods’ marriage was on the rocks as a result of some affair, and if the reason why he crashed his car was largely to do with some Thanksgiving tiff with his wife – so what? Why can’t the press leave their sizable nose out of the private issues of a couple’s marriage? We shouldn’t forget that it is not just Woods and Nordegren who have had their privacy invaded; Rachel Uchitel has been besieged in her home by reporters from around the globe, and all for what? Some low grade piece of tittle-tattle that probably would not have come to light if Woods hadn’t crashed the car.

There is a school of thought that says that what happens in the marital home should stay in the marital home; but I suppose the counter to that is that what occurred actually spilled out on to the street and therefore became fit for public consumption.

But isn’t there something deeply wrong with that?  I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love the fact that I can talk to the world via a wireless connection sat on my couch here in freezing, misty Wales. Never before have so many of the ‘Great Unwashed’ been able to opine and ruminate about the issues of the world; in a sense we are all journalists, we all have the ability to write a story and publish. But surely such power must come with an ounce of responsibility? There has to be a line across which we must not step – and that goes for the formal, trained media too.

Use some common decency to select what stories should and should not be published. If Tiger Woods is having marriage problems then that is very sad and we should all give him and his wife the space they need to resolve whatever issues exist between them. This is clearly a difficult time for all concerned. We should all do the right thing and turn the spotlight off them.