The media holds a double standard for professional athletes.
Here are two categories of athletes/sports figures.
Category A: Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, Randy Moss, Bill Belichick, Kobe Bryant
Category B: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Isiah Thomas, Michael Vick, Pacman Jones
The people in both categories have been alleged through rumors or other unsubstantiated allegations of committing unethical acts. Yet, the allegations against those from category A were either dismissed, forgotten, or forgiven while those from B are remembered, hyped up, accepted as being true, and have killed the athletes' credibility. Why is that? You can't say that those in B committed acts worse than those of A, because assuming all the allegations are true, those in A have done some pretty bad stuff. So why are so many fans fond of or indifferent to category A and so hostile to category B?
The answer is very simple. The media. The media doesn't mind those in A but despises those in B. Perhaps B was less savvy in their dealings with the media, or perhaps this is all a matter of whim. I really can't say. But what I know is that when the media doesn't like you, they really really don't like you, but when they don't really mind you, fans won't mind you either. Posters here and elsewhere are logging onto ESPN.com, reading the opinions of their reporters, succumbing to the subliminal messages in supposedly objective AP articles about sports, etc, etc.. What readers don't realize is that it is very, very easy to come up with allegedly objective material that is, in actuality, completely subjective. As an experiment, go watch Fox News for 30 minutes and then go watch a BBC News segment on the same subject. You will get two completely different stories. You can NOT convey controversial information without injecting your personal bias, so please do not go reading ESPN.com or cbs.sportsline.com or even AP assuming everything you are reading is completely objective.
Listen, I have no problem with individual viewpoints on these matters but what bothers me a lot is hypocrisy. Most of the allegations against A and B are unproven, but most fans, influenced by the media, either like or are indifferent to A and despise B. That's argumentative inconsistency if I ever saw it.
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