Of Tiger Woods, Jerry Jones and Tangled Web We Live

Those eras in sports, like the time of the dinosaurs, have passed from sight much to the chagrin of Jerry Jones and Tiger Woods, who each received refresher lessons recently about the notion that everything you say is always available to the public no matter where you say it or around whom.

Woods, of course, was caught by a CBS camera and microphones saying naughty words during Saturday's third round of the Masters, uttering a sacrilegious phrase, as well as yelling to himself, "You suck,' at himself after a poor shot.

Meanwhile, a 47-second video of Jones, captured by someone carrying a cell-phone camera at a bar, was posted this week by Deadspin.com and picked up by mainstream websites, as the Cowboys owner said some profane and not-so-complimentary things about his former coach Bill Parcells as well as Florida quarterback Tim Tebow.

Woods hasn't said anything about his verbal indiscretions and the disclosure of same, though plenty of others have weighed in.

CBS golf anchor Jim Nantz, for instance, expressed consternation bordering on anger with Woods during an appearance on The Mike Francesa Show on WFAN-AM in New York Monday, saying he would have been fired if he said the same things that Woods had.

And Tim Cowlishaw, a columnist with the Dallas Morning News, chastised media outlets, including his own newspaper, for running the Jones video, as well as stories on it.

In a certain sense, what Cowlishaw and Nantz are looking for is accountability and responsibility, in one case from news gathering organizations and in the other from athletes themselves.

The notions they espouse are quaint and honorable, and sadly, out of touch with the reality of the day.

Nantz bitterly suggested that Woods used language that few if any other tour pros uses and was particularly exorcised that Woods, in recent statements and press conferences, promised to curb his use of vulgarities.

Nantz called Woods' expressions "disappointing" on the air, adding to Francesa, "the main reason why, and I'm not trying to sound like a prima donna is he promised he wasn't going to do this anymore."

"I can't say anything I want when I'm on a live broadcast. Tiger's not the only guy who's got a camera in his face all day long. But he's the only one in the field who said he wasn't going to do that anymore."

Given what has allegedly been going on in Woods' life the last five months, failing to keep an oath to refrain from cursing seems pretty innocuous, but Woods should follow through on his promise, to the best of his ability.

That Woods broke his pledge at his first tournament back was bad enough, but doing so at the Masters, which fancies itself as the last bastion of clean living in Western society must have really galled the 18th century types at Augusta. If you didn't know better, you'd swear that Nantz was not only expressing his own anger, but that of the holier-than-thou Augusta members.

Still, If Woods can't keep his tongue in check, then the network that carries the tournament he's playing in has a problem, particularly when the Federal Communications Commission has been handing out record fines for obscenities, even when they're aired in live broadcasts.

As bizarre as it may sound, the FCC has no authority to fine the person(s) who utter profanities over the airwaves, but it does hold responsible the network that airs the bad words.

Woods' next scheduled tournament, at Quail Hollow in Charlotte, will air on -- pause for drumroll -- CBS in two weeks. The network, which is still living down the ignominy of the Janet Jackson Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction," not to mention the fallout from Serena Williams' U.S. Open meltdown in September, will have to plot some course of attack to cover Woods, who remains not only the tour's most compelling figure, but also its best player.

CBS could leave microphones near Woods potted low or could take his shots on tape. Or they could go the route ABC and ESPN take by running their signal through a slight delay. It may be galling to have to craft a telecast around the potty mouth of one man, but it solves the problem.

Like Nantz, Cowlishaw, one of the nation's premier sports columnists, seems upset at the crudeness of the day. But unlike the CBS announcer, Cowlishaw is upset with the means by which those obscenities are conveyed.

As elucidated in his Wednesday column, Cowlishaw bemoans the fact that the video of Jones aired on Deadspin, then was picked up by more traditional media outlets, including his own newspaper.

In the mind of Cowlishaw and many others, the mainstream media is increasingly being driven, or dragged, as the case may be, into areas that once were deemed beneath their interest; to wit, the coverage of Woods' infidelities and marital problems.

Indeed, it's fair to say that as recently as 10 years ago, Jones' comments might have flown completely under the radar, or, at most, have drawn a line or two in certain places.

In today's climate, everything everyone says or does at any time of the day or night, on or off the field is fair game. And with the viral nature of the Web, the commentary can begin within seconds of the utterance or deed.

That wreaks havoc with the tenets of good journalism, which is to gather facts, check for their accuracy and authenticity, then publish them. Generally speaking, few journalism professors would endorse the actions of a news organization that runs video captured by someone not on staff who shot a person who appears to be intoxicated at a bar speaking without knowledge that his words would be run.

Like it or not, this is the world we live in, and the effect may, as Cowlishaw fears, be a "justification for public figures, fearful of the modern consequences, to slam the doors on those of us with notepads or microphones once and for all."

On the other hand, without the web, those of us who live in the Baltimore-Washington area, as I do, might not have seen the video of Prince George's County (Md.) police officers beating a University of Maryland student after the Terps men's basketball team beat Duke in March.

A number of those officers have been suspended and face disciplinary action that might not have happened if those pictures hadn't surfaced. Just as we accept the foibles of a great athlete to admire their talent, we may have to swallow hard and deal with the Web's flaws to get at inconvenient truths.