Press Coverage: Sex, Scandal and PR-101

It's the oldest move in the PR book – when you have bad news to report, do it on a Friday. Tigers Woods, Inc. announced that the face of the corporation will be taking some time away from golf, with a post on his website – where else – on Friday evening and in doing so, provided some semblance of cover to the next chapter of this sordid affair. Of all the news items and unsubstantiated rumors that have come out, including all the (sordid) affairs, nothing is bigger than Tiger leaving golf. So of course, drop that little nugget of, "I need to focus my attention on being a better husband, father and person," right in our laps so the weekend talk show crews can debate the ramifications to small audiences, the papers can put the news on the front cover of the day with, by far, the lowest circulation and websites can post it when they have the fewest eyeballs reading.

It's PR-101. So too, is the move made by Accenture, announcing Sunday that Woods is, "no longer the right representative," for their brand. The announcement was made just in time for the Sunday studio shows to scrape out a few seconds from NFL highlights to break the news of Tiger's first official loss of sponsorship – other companies Tiger has partnered with have already pulled ads from circulation – and still be fresh enough news, broken in the middle of the day on Sunday, that the newspapers could splash Accenture across every front page in the world in timely and newsworthy fashion.

And splash they did. In fact, while Tiger Woods has proven to be bad business for Accenture – and at least bad PR for Gillette, AT&T, Tag Heuer, Gatorade and Nike – the golfer's scandal has been a boon for the newspaper industry. Well, at least the New York tabloid version of the newspaper industry. Woods, his wife, or one of his many (many) mistresses has appeared on the cover of the New York Daily News and New York Post every single day since his car crash was first reported. And, safe for one day when this looked like nothing more than a simple car crash, every Tiger story has made the front cover, not just the back page in sports. That's a lot of headline writing, of which the best are clearly, "I'm a Cheetah" (NYP Dec. 3), "Tiger's Back 9" (NYP Dec. 7), and Tiger Pause (NYDN Dec 12.)

Tiger Woods is still big business for one industry. Neither Obama sending thousands more troops to war nor Billy Joel's daughter trying to commit suicide could bounce Tiger completely off the front page. But no shared cover was better than December 13 in the NY Post where Tiger split the front page with the paper's new sex columnist; Eliot Spitzer's high-priced call girl, Ashley Dupre. As the saying goes, sex sells…newspapers.

Writers Split on Donaghy, NBA's Culpability
Speaking of the New York Post, Peter Vecsey wrote a detailed response to assertions permeating from the pages of Tim Donaghy's book that he wasn't the only referee on the take, and that some of the other dirty officials were actually calling the game with, shall we say, askew per the league's directive. Vecsey used specific games and events to counter-point many of the points in Donaghy's book, which would have been fine, if not for this shot at Sports Illustrated's Phil Taylor. In part:

Phil Taylor's approach is typical of how roundball reporters are mishandling Donaghy's baseless barrage through "Personal Foul." Several paragraphs of generalities followed by no insights.

"The NBA wants us to believe that Donaghy is just making wild accusations in order to make a buck. Is that true, or is much of what he's telling us right on the money? There are so many questions out there, and you get the feeling that the NBA doesn't really want to know the answers."

Considering the Sports Illustrated columnist has covered the league for well over a decade, you would think he could supply at least one clue or two off the top of his head. Hey, maybe even do a little research. Maybe seek out someone who is qualified to recognize dirty laundry from clean clothes. Maybe ask your audience to bail you out.

Cat. Fight.

Look, I don't know enough of about the NBA to be able to watch the tapes and determine if the referees were fixing games or just bad at their jobs. Clearly Donaghy is a liar about some things, so who knows what to believe. I do know that Taylor offered up some reasonable questions the league should be forced to answer – he mentioned that if this were baseball, Congress would be standing outside the commissioner's door – while Vecesy's column reads like it was written by the league's PR office. Sure he "blows the whistle" on Donaghy's claims, as the headline promises, but by attacking Taylor and other "media mopes just trying to fill that day's space of air," Vecsey seems (seems) like he's running interference for the league.

Why Decade Lists Never Work
In addition to the barrage of stories that come out in December chronicling the year in review, this year we've been privy to countless decade retrospectives as well. Look, I'm a sucker for lists just like anybody else, and I love the rear-view mirror view of sports and popular culture as much as any guy, but the problem with these lists is that, invariably, the author leaves out something (or someone) that makes more news than anything actually on the list.

Last week, SI.com put out the Best of the Decade in movies, TV shows, books and blogs, written by Bryan Armen Graham. This is clearly a work of opinion by Graham or a group of SI writers with Graham's name attached (clearly and properly presented as such), and certainly any of the lists can be applauded and challenged with equal validity and vigor. But I'll take the blogs for a moment. The list included Deadspin, ProFootballTalk.com, Fire Joe Morgan, The Big Lead and BadJocks.com with honorable mention to SportsByBrooks, TrueHoop, The Spoiler and Awful Announcing.

It's a fine list, and there's no doubt these sites are deserving. Yet how does the name Mottram not appear somewhere in this story? Both Jamie and Chris edit Mr. Irrelevant, and while Chris used to run this fine site and now works over at SB Nation, Jamie essentially created Fanhouse before leaving to build the Yahoo network of blogs a few years ago. Both Fanhouse and Mottram independently have "Walsh-style talent trees," as Yahoo's Greg Wyshynski said via Twitter, at least as big as anyone at Deadspin or TBL, PFT or, well, anywhere. Was the error an act of omission or commission by SI.com?

And since we're picking nits here, how is there no mention of Free Darko? I suppose their work is too (macro)phenomenal for lists.

D-Jack Translated
Desean Jackson is one of the most dynamic players in the NFL. The second-year pro is getting a lot of attention around the league and is fast becoming a household name. So, naturally, people are starting to want to know what D-Jack has to say, and for that, we've been trained to go to Twitter. Now, we all want athletes to be themselves and Twitter is a great way for people to express their thoughts and communicate directly with fans. But athletes have to keep in mind the audience. In Jackson's case, his slang style of writing has become a topic of conversation around the internet, as one Eagles fan has decided to create the account @DJackTranslated. Two examples below.

Ya boi at da sixer game sittn courtside cali in da house!! Ma bro bro trev ariza playn da sixers serv'em up right now... sheesh

RT @deseanjackson10: I'm at the sixers game right now. courtside, baby! my friend Trevor Ariza is playing. wow.

On da way 2 Ny what's popn my G' all the waaaaay from cali mak'n my pressence known on da eastcoast.... and u do kno that...

RT @deseanjackson10: heading to New York.

The lesson: everyone's watching, it's just a matter of whether or not athletes care.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.