Interest in Tiger is only natural

I feel as if I should apologize even as I type these words: I, too, am writing about Tiger Woods.

I have been reading many of my colleagues in the commentariat for two weeks. They are pained. They are guilty. They are outraged that they, and America, have been dragged, unwillingly, into this tabloid sinkhole.

At the most serious news outlets, editors have expressed their ambivalence about the long parade of Tiger’s Top Models. They’ve sworn off the babe patrol and assigned weighty stories about corporate sponsorship, human psychology and new media. Oh, to stand in scandal’s titillating glow, without your precious reputation getting burned.

Some of my media colleagues have fallen in love, it seems, with their lack of love for this story. It must be tiring being so righteous, so I have some advice for guilty members of the Fourth Estate: Give it a rest.

Why? Because any time one of the world’s biggest celebrities, a champion and a hero to millions, suffers a fall from grace, that’s a story. It’s a big story. And the news people who shrink from covering it willfully turn away from lust, intrigue, fury and . . . who knows, maybe even redemption.

The people squirming over this blockbuster would have labeled the Lindbergh baby kidnapping a “private, family matter.” They might have argued that Bill Clinton’s pleasure-and-pizza session with Monica Lewinsky should remain a state secret.

Here’s the quick back story, for those of you who’ve been trapped in a diving bell since Thanksgiving, on the L’Affaire Tigre: The world’s greatest golfer left his mansion in the wee hours, the morning after the holiday. In a big hurry, he barely made it out of the driveway before slamming a Cadillac Escalade into a fire hydrant, then a tree.

Woods’ wife, Elin, wielded a golf club, either to free her husband from the wreckage (as police said she claimed) or to exact revenge on her Tiger (as subsequent events seem to suggest).

Though Woods (known for his exquisite control, at least on the golf course) went quiet, a procession of “hoochie mamas” (more on that later) had a lot to say about the golfer’s (alleged) extracurricular exertions.

Credit should go to those few who acknowledged the deep-seated attraction of this tale, among them one man who wrote to National Public Radio.

“Zeus himself cheated on his wives with the likes of Europa and Semele because he was traveling the world and was treated like, well, a god,” the radio fan wrote in a letter read over the air. He concluded: “We mortals are always fascinated to discover that the gods really have spikes of clay.”

CBSsports.com colum- nist Gregg Doyel put it a little more bluntly: “The sex life of Tiger Woods matters to me.” It’s just inherently fascinating, Doyel argued. No apologies needed.

But a lot of other mainstream media voices got all twisted in knots, harrumphing one minute about journalism taking the low road, before taking a bit of a spin on that highway themselves.

The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson demanded this week that we all “Leave Tiger alone,” before sheepishly conceding that the “unfolding saga is compelling, even if paying attention leaves me feeling a bit disappointed in myself.”

Robinson wasn’t so disappointed, of course, that it stopped him from musing on about Tiger: Why such low-rent mistresses? And why (asked the African American columnist) all such white-bread Barbie dolls?

The Kansas City Star’s Jason Whitlock insisted that the media’s behavior represented some sort of watershed moment that “will forever change the way the sports world is covered.”

(Apparently he missed Kobe Bryant and the Colorado hotel worker, and a few dozen other sports sex scandals.)

Determined to avoid understatement, Whitlock also asserted that media coverage, not Woods’ own shortcom- ings, “will have a dramatic, negative impact on Tiger’s pursuit of Jack Nicklaus’ record for career major championships.”

Of course. The media must be held accountable for Woods’ troubled marriage and his failure (self-confessed) to live up to his own values. Doubtless there will be some media culpability if, God forbid, the golf god loses his back swing or his knee goes out again.

Does the public have an inherent right to know about Tiger’s indiscretions? No. Does Tiger have an inherent right to craft a public persona, and draw tremendous profit from it, without any reality-checking from the press? No.

A public figure should expect a certain amount of intrusion in his life, especially when he takes his personal business into the street.

That’s not to condone the dig-through-the-trash, pay-for-any-morsel obsession that some overheated news outlets will apply this time around.

But tell me, who among you does not want to know what really happened between Tiger and his wife after they polished off the pumpkin pie Thanksgiving Day?

Can you honestly say you’re not curious about what kind of club found its way into Elin’s hands?

It may have been goofy and, doubtless, less than accurate, but that’s why the Hong Kong-made animation of what might have happened that night in tony Windermere, Fla., is as riveting as it is lame and, doubtless, inaccurate.

This blizzard of ersatz reporting and conjecture really need not be seen as setting the standard for all future newsmaking -- even if the New York Times wants to wonder as much in a front page story.

Some outlets have been able to feel more upright about the Woods story by downplaying the fascinating particulars and focusing on the fallout. Witness the ubiquitous pieces (also chock-full of speculation) about whether domestic tribulation will dent Woods’ endorsement tabulation.

Like many stories that capture the public imagination, the passions and issues aroused have been many.

The Associated Press reported over the weekend that many African Americans had been particularly agitated with the multiethnic Woods, son of an African American father, not only because he had fallen but also because he had done so with a bunch of white women.

One satiric song on the nationally syndicated Tom Joyner radio show suggested Woods would have suffered a lot more than a few scratches “if a sister caught you running around with a bunch of white hoochie-mamas.”

Swedish commentators, meanwhile, have made the beautiful and previously enigmatic Elin a heroine for apparently standing up to her philandering man. The New York Times, in another front pager, identified text messages as the new “lipstick on the collar” in telltale signs of indiscre- tion.

Amid all the pop culture banter and speculation, the media have even delivered a few worthwhile lessons. The Baltimore Sun, for instance, interviewed a local private detective about the long-term toll adultery can have on families, particularly children.

Critics will roll out the old canard about the press obsessing over celebrity at the expense of real journalism. But an unscientific survey suggests that we aren’t lacking for stories about healthcare reform and the expanding war in Afghanistan.

If a few reporters want to focus on whether Elin wielded a pitching wedge or 2-iron, the republic will not crumble.

How long can we obsess on the next photos of Tiger’s alleged paramours, anyway? The Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, just a couple of months from publication, has got to put at least a dent in this business.

james.rainey@latimes.com