Okay, so Michael Phelps has been photographed using a bong. According to reports, he didn't seem to be a stranger to it either.
Now the media is eating him alive. Sponsors are dropping his endorsements of their products. He's basically being roasted alive worse than that welfare-receiving single mother with the dozen plus two kids.
Now, I'm of the opinion that Phelps SHOULD suffer some. This is someone who was a hero. He was supposed to be better than his contemporaries. During the Olympics the reporters oohed and ahhed about how Phelps got to where he was with having never failed a drug test.
Looks like he finally failed one.
But at the same time, the media's failure in all this needs to be brought to light.
Sure, he was photographed by probably an amateur using a cell-phone camera who turned around and sold it to a tabloid for some cash. And that trickled into the "legitimate" media, and became a huge story.
There almost seems to be some bitterness in the voices of some of the mainstream media talking heads covering this story. Almost like they feel betrayed. How could this... kid who they built into an icon do this to THEM?
I think that it may be a little different.
I think the media is put off by the fact that it was not one of their own to "out" Phelps as a pot-head, but rather some guy who happened to be at the party (the right place at the right time). I think the bitterness has to do with the parallel to the lack of due diligence that took Dan Rather down.
They bought into the phenomenon aspect of Michael Phelps, and didn't bother to do more than look at the surface. He never failed a drug test, so he's gold. Had they dug deeper, as they did in the case of another "instant celebrity" figure like Joe the Plumber, maybe they would have found Mike's pot connections. But they didn't.
They bought their own hype. And now they have egg on their face, because a tabloid with a picture taken by an amateur out-did them. Since they cannot blame themselves, they can take solace in the fact that Phelps, while still having never failed a drug test, will lose all his multi-million dollar deals, and the icon that they were duped into propping up will take the fall, and they will report each and every blow he takes on the way down.
Meanwhile, we will watch either disappointed ("He seemed like such a nice kid") or gloating ("Huh. Punk kid. I never did like him. He seemed too good to be true"). We will tune in to see what merchandising deal he lost now. And the media will be, once again, held to no standard but whatever they decide is a appropriate now.
The media of course will not say anything, and will attack those who say that the media bears any responsibility. After all, they just report the news. But when they make the news, and they deny it, that never gets reported. The media thinks that their job is to make sure that public figures are held accountable, but who does the accounting of the media?
It's asked "who watches the watchers". I would like to ask, "who reports on the reporters?"
How long will we allow the media to behave with impunity, never held accountable for what they say or do to get the story?
Yup. Michael Phelps is human. He's a 21 year old who smokes pot. Why is this a story?
The question should be, why is Michael Phelps known to anyone outside of the swimming world?
Fame, it seems is fickle, especially when the media is involved.
What they have given, they can take away. I hope Michael has some non-swimming related job to fall back on. I'm sure when he starts there, the media will let us know, so they can close this book before anyone looks too closely at their failure.
No comments:
Post a Comment