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golfweek magazine and judgment

By Rick Karcher, Michael McCann, Geoffrey Rapp, Greg Skidmore, and Howard Wasserman

As the Kelly Tilghman maelstrom had begun to abate in connection with her Tiger Woods "lynch him in a back alley" blunder, Golfweek has just published the image of a noose in connection to Tilghman's ignorant commentary in this weeks edition of its magazine.

Does this represent a collosal lapse in judgment on the part of Golfweek editor Dave Seanor or is this a merely a nefarious attempt to grab attention for a weekly mag that distributes approximately 160,000 copies per, mostly to subscribers? The cover page reads: "Caught In A Noose: Tilghman Slips Up, and Golf Channel Can't Wriggle Free."

PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem weighed in with a statement in the New York Times decrying the imagery of a "swinging noose" as "outrageous and irresponsible." Seanor defends the cover as not intending to be ?'racially provocative,' but to illustrate a noose tightening around Tilghman, the Golf Channel and golf."

Last week, vigorous debate was heard on this blog and around the country in connection with the imagery and psychology of "lynching" and "the noose" in the United States, particularly in connection with the historically racialized practice of lynching African American citizens, mostly in the South, in our nation's fairly recent past. National attention has been shined on the incident by Reverend Al Sharpton and the Golf Channel's highly publicized suspension of Tilghman resulting in both platitudes and harsh criticism. Few images in the U.S. are more insulting or racially charged than the noose.

Full post as published by Sports Law Blog on January 18, 2008 (boomark / email).