The mass media often get tarnished for a laundry list of transgressions—from missing the Enron story until the damage is already done to giving President Bush an uncritical forum to advance a shadowy war. But in the case of the Olympic judging scandal, a controversy that has broader implications than you might think, the press more or less did its job.
Last week, the International Olympic Committee decided to award a second gold medal to Canadian skaters Jamie Salé and David Peltier, who had clearly outskated an imperfect Russian pair. The Russians, who committed their share of technical flubs, somehow managed to win the gold and bump the Canadians to silver. After the judges’ errant decision, various Olympic bureaucrats huffed that the matter was closed and that they wouldn’t review it.
But that wasn’t the end of the story. Various media outlets, from the Associated Press to The Miami Herald, quickly dug into the made-for-cable TV scandal, discovering that at least one of the judges was pressured before the fact to vote for the Russians. Public pressure intensified on someone—anyone—to right a clear and obvious wrong, and the IOC relented.
On CNN’s Reliable Sources, host Howard Kurtz asked Washington Post sports columnist Sally Jenkins if media pressure prompted the stodgy IOC to address the skating scandal and award a second gold medal.
“Absolutely,” Jenkins said. “I mean, you’re talking about the International Skating Union and the IOC, which are two of the great stonewalling organizations on the face of the earth. I think the level of media pressure that was brought to bear was brought as a direct result of the fact that the press knows how these organizations would have behaved if we hadn’t followed the story the way we did.”
The travails of two good-looking Canadians shouldn’t have landed on the covers of Time and Newsweek, given that the U.S. is currently pitted against a dangerous “axis of evil,” but what happened last week was nevertheless a very compelling human drama. It wasn’t resolved perfectly—the Russians clearly lost, and they should have been given the Canadians’ silver—but the near mending of the scandal helped restore some faith in the Olympics, if not competition in general. The essence of sport is fair play, and while that ideal can’t always be reached, it doesn’t hurt to try.
Tears in my beer
Here’s a primer on just how sensitive Music Row managers can be. Last Saturday, Phil Sweetland, who writes the syndicated column “Country Insider,” which doesn’t run in any Nashville publication, reported that country singer Eric Heatherly was ready to part from Mercury Records and its chairman Luke Lewis. Sweetland also reported that Heatherly was “steamed” and “massively miffed.”
The next day, The Tennessean’s Brad Schmitt definitively reported that Heatherly, whose lone hit was a cover of the Statler Brothers staple “Flowers on the Wall,” had left the label. Schmitt, of course, put a sugary spin on the story, calling the crooner “an awesome guitar player, a great performer and a damned nice guy.”
Which story do you think Bobby Roberts, Eric Heatherly’s manager, preferred?
“I don’t know your source of information, but to say Eric Heatherly is massively miffed at Mercury is careless journalism, in my opinion,” Roberts wrote in an e-mail that Sweetland included in a subsequent column. “He is not steamed at Mercury, but is pleased to be allowed to move on.... Mercury and Eric’s parting has been amicable. It would be nice if you printed that. This kind of irresponsible journalism is upsetting to a manager, and I wish you would look at the way ‘Brad About You’ covered it.”
Remember, never, ever practice journalism that is “upsetting to a manager.” Anyway, Sweetland gamely replied to Roberts, but the manager remained irritated.
“I just wanted you to know that your comments about Eric and Mercury could not have come at a worse time,” Roberts wrote in yet another e-mail that Sweetland again included in a column. “Eric’s feelings are not of being miffed or angry. The break was amicable and, after speaking to Eric, he asked me if you would print a retraction.”
Sweetland, who had repeatedly tried to get Heatherly to comment for his story, has no plans to run a retraction, saying “there’s no reason to.” Maybe next time, he’ll remember to call Heatherly a “damned nice guy.”
Name calling
WKRN-Channel 2 ran a story on its 5 p.m. Sunday newscast about Van Hilleary’s official announcement to run for the Republican nomination for governor. Simple enough, but the station ran a picture of former first lady turned U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton. When appraised of his station’s flub, news director Matthew Zelkind said simply, “oops.”
For questions or comments about the media, contact Matt Pulle at 244-7989, ext. 445, or mpulle@nashvillescene.com.
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