Ed Note: The following appears courtesy the National Sports Journalism Center.

This is a guarantee: Every personality in TV sports, big or small, now will be the nicest people in the world in the wake of what happened to Britt McHenry.

Chris Berman will bring flowers to the IRS auditor who will be dissecting https://justfucklocal.com/ his taxes. After making a trip to renew his driver’s license only to hear he is missing a form, Bob Costas will flash a big smile and tell the DMV clerk, “Oh, you’re so kind.”

And you can be sure if a big TV sports star gets a car towed, he or she will merrily pay the fee and depart by telling the person in the booth, “Have a lovely day.”

Nobody will dare make the same mistake McHenry did in verbally abusing a towing attendant last week. An apparent edited videotape went viral, and ESPN responded by suspending her for a week.

The reaction on social media was even more extreme. I saw a tweet that read, “She needs to be smacked.” And there was much worse.

In an instant, McHenry, who barely registered on most sports viewers’ radar prior to last week, became a cause célèbre. Her story even was the subject of debate on the Sunday morning talk shows. I mean, Cokie Roberts vilified McHenry.

The whole saga was depressing from a journalistic perspective. It was yet another example of how peeping-Tom journalism has us all sliding down a messy slippery slope to a truly terrible abyss.

Now to be clear, McHenry’s behavior was deplorable, straight out of “Mean Girls.” She had no business ridiculing the clerk’s appearance or educational background. Not everyone is fortunate to be born blonde and have the chance to go to graduate school at Northwestern like McHenry.

A preview of Kylie Jenner’s upcoming https://yourfappeningblog.com/category/kylie-jenner-nude/ nude photo shoot for Playboy magazine has just been leaked online in the pics above and below. Reportedly this nude shoot was “directed” by Kylie’s baby daddy the nig nog rapper Travis Scott, so there should be many gratuitous shots of Kylie’s grotesquely over-sized glutes and bank account …

Yet McHenry didn’t have her tirade over the air. It was a private moment. She lost it in what clearly was a frustrating situation. If you can’t relate on some level, then you’re not being honest.

One tweeter came to McHenry’s defense: “Haven’t we all cussed out a towing company? Tow companies are one step from Satan, aren’t they?”

Again, people things in the heat of the moment that they wish they could take back. Much also was made of the fact McHenry pulled out the “I’m-on-TV” card. Well, if you think she’s the first broadcast personality to use that line, you need to get a clue. Virtually everyone has invoked his or her media status at some point.

McHenry, though, had the misfortune of having her bad behavior captured on what likely is an edited video. Then it went viral. If only she had taken public transportation that night.

My initial reaction was to ask, “Does this story qualify as news?” Barely anyone had heard of her before this happened. Why should anyone care?

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News had a bit more pointed way of posing the question:

“Who, again, is Britt McHenry nude, and why should we care that she’s acting like a snot wad to a tow-truck company employee? Sorry, the excuse that ‘this is the world of video in which we live in’ doesn’t even apply here.”

Intellectually, I know what happened is news, especially after ESPN suspended her for a week because of the social media uproar. As it was explained to me, ESPN tells its talent they represent the company at all times, not just when they are on the air. Apparently, that includes dealing with a towing company.

Jason McIntyre of The Big Lead responded to my question with a couple of Tweets: “Pretty person on TV says mean, vile things to minimum wage worker. If it bleeds, it leads?”

And: “I’d guess 80% of largest papers in the country picked it up. Top 10 traffic day of ’15 for us.”

Indeed, as one reader wrote to me, “We love seeing people behave badly.”

It really makes no sense to rail about peeping-Tom journalism. It’s a reality in today’s new media age. Just ask Ray Rice and Donald Sterling. Fair or not, unflattering video and audio will continue to get leaked to sites who will quickly post at just a tad under the speed of sound.

The McHenry flap shows in dramatic fashion how everyone is fair game in the age of cell phones and other forms of sophisticated video. They all need to be on their best behavior, because one bad moment could shatter a career.

Simply put, if Joe Buck is into his second hour waiting for his entree, he will pull over the waiter and say, “I just want you to know how much I appreciate your fine service.”

About Ed Sherman

Ed Sherman is a veteran sports media writer and purveyor of The Sherman Report website. His writing can also be found at the Chicago Tribune, USA Today, and the National Sports Journalism Center.

Comments are closed.