The Embarrassment That Is TV

Recently I told someone that if I never again had the opportunity to appear "on-air" for television sports, I doubt if I would miss it. This in itself is disturbing because it's my chosen craft and has been as much a part of life as breathing. But there was a reason for my answer. I'm not sure I want to be associated with what has become the utter lack of professionalism in my field, and most of it comes down to what Don Henley once called those "bubble headed bleach blondes that come on at 5".
Let's take Kelly Tilgham first. I'm confident that she didn't associate what she was saying with African-Americans. It was just too blatant if indeed it was and would indicated she didn't have a working brain cell in her cranium. No, I believe she was just using an example that any number of people might use. Of course we all knew the Al Sharpton's of the world would come blustering out of their racial hole to condemn her and the G0lf Channel. This has always been interesting to me seeing as Sharpton is the guy who launched a blistering attack against the white population of Wappingers Falls NY many years ago after a young black woman was found left in a building covered with feces and she blamed white attackers. She later recanted, admitted she made the whole thing up, but phony Reverend Al never apologized for what he said. The man is a racist and a bold-faced liar. Anyway, I digress.
Tilghman, in my opinion, should not have been suspended 2 weeks. She made an innocent mistake. She apologized. End of story. As I've often been want to say, if you keep drilling something home you only bring attention to it, many times in a negative fashion. This was not something that needed to receive the attention it did.
Next up, Dana Jacobsen. What she said about Notre Dame was WAY over the edge, yet it's her right to say those things. I blame part of it on being a Michigan alum and I've always thought those people were wrapped too tight. But what she said, as correctly pointed out by my colleague John Molori on http://www.speedingbulletnetwork.com/, is that this was said at a PRIVATE even, a roast, where anything usually and always goes. The idea of a roast is to go overboard in both act and insult. What she said was not meant for public consumption yet someone felt the need to broadcast it, likely to embarrass her. Not necessary. Freedom of speech and all that.
However, she is a TV "personality", not to be confused with a journalist. She's eye candy, and we all know it. She should be smart enough to realize that when you have any amount of celebrity what you do may always come back to bite you in the ass, so you maintain yourself in public fearful that some PC lunatic will report you. Again, don't suspend her. Just make her wear Notre Dame colors for a month and if she survives the skin rash she will have paid her dues.
Here's another. Kirk Giminez is a sports reporter for SNY, the regional sports channel in NY. Recently over video clips of St. John's-West Virginia, he said, "[WVU's] Joe Alexander going baseline, and the white boy puts it in, reverse." You could hear the PC geeks tuning up in the background.
He was making a joke that everyone, black and white has made for years. Go ahead and "google" white guys and basketball and you'll be reading the posts until the next Ice Age. Oh, sorry, that's next year. My bad.
Of course he was scolded, but wasn't suspended, and it didn't make national headlines. Why, you ask? Regional sports network, that's why. And he's of Latin-American extraction, which in the minds of many let's him off the hook because he didn't say something about a black player. Classic double-standard. But he was trying to be sute, say something that would garner him attention, and hopefully impress his bosses that he's worth keeping at his likely ludicrously low salary.
Until News Directors, programers, and those in charge of hiring people who stop trying to be actors, who cease trying to show who can claim the most cleavage on air title, and who know how to tell a story without resorting to props and usless adjectives, my industry will continue it's slide into the gutter of babble. And don't kid yourself for one second. Many times these so-called reporters and anchors are asked to do things that a circus clown would consider beneath him or her.
It's an embrassment to those of us who have spent our lives trying to do solid work and present solid information while making entertainment second. And until we realize the difference between words said in hate and words said because those in the higher chairs want their people to be "out there" and "be recognized for something", we will always be subjected to drivel.
Someone needs to be ashamed of themselves. But they won't be. They don't have to be. Completing the line from "Dirty Laundry"..."I just have to look good, I don't have to be clear".
Couldn't have said it better myself.