Two of the best in the business, Sal Johnson and Len Shapiro, breakdown the Golfweek mess. Sal discusses Golf Channel broadcasts with Rich Lerner in the chair. Len discusses why Golfweek should have known better than to pull the bush league publicity stunt they did and that they got what they deserved. Here’s my favorite section, where he calls out the all-to-frequently-wrong-Tony Kornheiser:
“…Tony Kornheiser said, in effect, Hey boys and girls, this is the magazine business, and magazine covers have always been designed to be eye-catching and provocative, so they stand out when you pass a crowded magazine rack at the newsstand.
I might have agreed, except that virtually all of Golfweek’s 160,000 readers get their magazines by subscription, through the mail. You can’t get it at your local newsstand, supermarket, or Barnes and Noble. This was not a cover designed to increase circulation of that issue. It was meant to boost buzz, and it certainly accomplished that goal, for all the wrong reasons.”
Look, somebody in that room has to be responsible to say that “even though we may try to claim journalistic license and creativity, people will see right through that fig leaf of credibility and lambaste us in the court of public opinion” and Golfweek is still not Golf Magazine, Golf Digest, Golf World, Links or even Travel and Leisure Golf for that one critical reason; they still don’t have enough of a vetting team around them to correctly analyze all the social, economic, legal, financial and policy issues involved in serious journalism issues. This was not as simple as going to interview Tiger about some missed triple-breaking putts at Oakmont.
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