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Episode One Hundred Fifty Seven: Straight White Female · The Death Of Journalism

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All right, Episode one fifty seven in three two one. Welcome to episode
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number one hundred and fifty seven of the Death of Journalism podcast. My name
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is John Zigler. I'm your host on today's show. Golf News once again
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crosses over into the mainstream. The Trump trial is coming to an end.
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Joe Biden keeps playing the race card from the bottom of the deck. The
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media goes after Justice Alito in absurd fashion. Is Caitlin Clark's race and sexuality
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key to our extreme popularity? And Harrison Butker gets more support from the key
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members of the Kansas City Chiefs. We have lots to catch up on on
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this episode the podcast. Hope you had a good Memorial Day weekend. I'm
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going to start oddly, although briefly, once again, with two stories from
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the world of golf. Obviously, if you know anything about me, I'm
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a tournament go offer, a big golf fan. But these two stories have
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very little to do with golf itself, and I will deal with them at
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least somewhat briefly because there's a lot of other stuff I want to get to
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in this episode of the podcast. The first story is just one of those
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horrendous human tragedies that make you wonder about the essence of life, and that
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is that Grayson Murray, the fifty eighth ranked player in the world and a
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mainstay on the PGA Tour, one of those that was actually the most anti
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live of anybody on the PGA Tour, was very active on social media about
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his opinions on that killed himself during a tournament this past weekend and not actually
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at the golf course. We don't still know the details of how or why.
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We'll probably never know why he killed himself, and it was first reported
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as just a sudden death after he had withdrawn from the tournament that second day.
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And I'm sure there were a lot of people who thought, especially on
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social media, oh sudden death. Here we go another athlete dying of a
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sudden death, as is somehow vaccine related. But there was no talk about
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a heart attack, and he had withdrawn from the tournament because of illness,
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although it didn't appear that he was all that ill when he left the tournament,
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and there was an awful lot of coverage in the golf world about this
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tragic event. I mean, this is a huge deal. This is a
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guy who was a major player and who was in tremendous physical shape. He
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had battled alcoholism, and so that was clearly going to be part of what
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happened here, either directly or indirectly. But I'm a pretty big believer in
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reading the te leaves when it comes to media coverage in these kind of situations,
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and when there's no cause of death, provided that tells me in this
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day and age, as quickly as word travels, that that probably means it
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was a suicide, either directly or indirectly a suicide. And this appears to
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have been a clear cut suicide, which was not known until the next day
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when his parents put out a statement. And the idea that a guy like
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Grayson Murray could kill himself is just so mind boggling. This is a guy
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who seven weeks ago was playing in the Master's golf tournament, and he was
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engaged to be married to a beautiful woman who caddied for him. In the
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par three tournament at the Masters, she hit a shot on national television,
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as the caddies often do in that event, and she knocked it very close
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to the pin. The video when viral she turned round and kissed Grayson.
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I mean, and this is a guy who, on the surface had everything
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to live for. He was living the dream. I mean, can you
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imagine. I mean, he was exempt for the US Open, you know,
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like I said, an enormously talented player, a guy with seemingly everything
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to live for, and he had battled alcoholism. But the idea that you
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could plan a PGA Tour event, shoot sixty six on Thursday, have a
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bad day on Friday with drow outer sixteen holes and decide to kill yourself while
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you're engaged to be married. I cannot wrap my brain around that. And
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I'm somebody who has been very open and honest with my battles with depression,
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especially after my mother was killed many many years ago in a car accident.
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And how I probably you know, I've never seriously considered suicide, but I've
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thought about it, especially on the golf course. Almost every golfer has thought
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about suicide at some point. What are the golf course? I mean that
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facetiously, but this is an area that I've thought a lot about, and
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I cannot recall a suicide in the world of sports that was this inexplicable.
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And you know, in going back to trying to read the tea leaves,
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and this is dangerous in this kind of situation. But I did find it
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odd and potentially telling that when the parents put out their statement where it was
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kind of buried in the middle that he killed himself. And you know this,
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let me sidetrack here for a second. The issue of the media and
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suicide has changed so much over the years. It used to be very clear
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what the rules were in the media. If someone committed suicide, you just
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reported on their death and that was it. And you know that, you
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know, they did not get the normal treatment of someone who would die naturally,
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because it was understood in the news media that you don't want to create
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somehow an incentive for someone to kill themselves. And so who knows back in
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the day I'm talking in like the sixties, seventies, eighties, this probably
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started to change like everything else did in the nineties, maybe a little bit
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later than that. Who knows how many people actually died of who were prominent
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people who died of suicide that we just didn't even know about it because it
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was just verboten to report it. And I understand that because I'm a big
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believer in incentive structures and self interest, and if someone is going to know
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for sure that if they kill themselves, it's going to be as if they
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never existed, at least in the public eye. Then they may not do
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that. But in the era of social media, it's basically impossible now to
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keep that under wraps and to hold the line on the rules there, so
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now everything goes And I do think that when someone kills themselves that the media
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should be handling it differently, not just from the standpoint of, you know,
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emphasizing the suicide, but you know, and I'm not suggesting that this
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is an easy call, because there's a lot of pain involved and people do
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things, you know, when they're not thinking clearly. But when you kill
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yourself, I'm sorry, you don't get full honors and death. I guess
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that's the simplest way that I can put it, unless it's some sort of
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extreme circumstance, and this was clearly not an extreme circumstance. And this was
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a guy who was in perfect health, living the dream and he decides to
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kill himself, and so you can have sympathy for the family and what have
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you, and it can be a news story. But the idea that the
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PJ Tory even considered canceling the rest of the tournament, which the parents said,
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no, don't do that. It's just preposterous. I mean, if
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that had happened, I would be going apoplectic because someone killed themselves. You're
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going to cancel the rest of the tournament? No, you can't. That's
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a horrendous precedent. But any way, back to the parent's statement, the
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fiance was not mentioned in the parent statement, and I found that to be
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interesting. It could mean nothing, but was that possibly a trigger? I
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mean, because something had to have happened in my view, I mean,
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for the I don't care how dark your thoughts are, what your battle with
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alcoholism is. When you're living that kind of life, there has to be
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something to trigger you. And it's just a theory. I have absolutely no
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information to back this up, but I just found it weird and potentially telling
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that the fiance was not mentioned at all by the parents and the statements surrounding
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the death of Grayson Murray. And to me, it's one of those this
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is a story that hit home, not just because it was golf, but
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because I just I just cannot imagine how someone could get to that point.
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And I guess you also think about my gosh. I guess even when people
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appear to be living this almost perfect life, that oftentimes they really aren't.
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And you know when you can be envious to somebody and not realize that they're
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actually going through some semblance of torture, and I guess that was what was
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happening with Grace and Murray. Now interestingly, I was playing in a golf
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tournament myself this past weekend in Los Angeles Invitational, a very prestigious three day
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team event at Wilshire Country Club, which is very well known, used in
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a lot of TV shows and movies, has a tremendous history, and ended
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up our team two man team ended up finishing second out of one hundred and
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four teams, which sounds really great except I probably had the best partner in
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the entire tournament, so it was partially my fault that we only finished second
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instead of first. It's the second time I finished second of this tournament.
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It's a long time goal of mine to win it, so that it was
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gratified because we ended up being paired in the last day against my arch nemesis
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from nineteen years ago, and I finally got revenge on him because we beat
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them head to head. In fact, we thought we had won the tournament
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because we beat them. Their team was very good and I thought they were
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the best team in the tournament. So we finished thinking we had won,
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and it turned out one other team beat us by a couple of shots.
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But it was a good time and a good tournament. My partner played great.
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But the reason why this is relevant to the Grayson Murray thing is I
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did find it very weird that nobody was talking about Grayson Murray. Nobody.
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I mean, it was almost as if it was too difficult a topic to
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even discuss. You would think at a golf tournament where something like this happens,
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people would go, hey, what do you think of Grayson Murray?
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And nobody even referenced it. Not a zero zip zilch. And maybe it's
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because it was an intense tournament, but it's a pretty social deal. There
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was a dinner afterwards, and Ward's dinner, and nobody mentioned it, as
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if we're just going to ignore that that happened, which I found to be
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also odd. Now, there were some people talking about the second golf story
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that I want to reference at the top of this episode of the podcast,
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and that is the latest in the Scotty Scheffler saga. And you probably are
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aware that when Scotti Scheffler was arrested to the PHA Championship, I was probably
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more outspoken. I mean, I didn't hear anybody in any form of media
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that was more outspoken than I was that this was quite obviously a load of
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crap and that there's no chance, no chance that Scottie Scheffer did anything with
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ill intend or did anything to hurt purposely a police officer or a police officer,
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or to disobey orders or anything like that. I was exceedingly confident in
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that. I was exceedingly confident that the cop was to blame here. How
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much I wasn't sure. And was it possible that there was some incident that
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got misconstrued. I was open to that, But I was very very sure
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that Scotti Scheffler was being railroaded and that this was a situation where some cop,
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some rogue cop, got his ego bruised and decided to take it out
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on Scotty Scheffler. Well, we were told that the bodycam video was not
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going to exist here because the police officer involved had not turned it on against
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policy, and so we thought, at least at first, that there may
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not be any video evidence of what happened, But of course, in this
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day and age, there's video everywhere. If there's people, if there's cars,
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if there's traffic lights or any sort of civilization in the vicinity, you're
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probably going to get some form of video. And it turned out that there
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are a couple of videotapes of this episode that caused Scotty Shuffer to be arrested
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and charged with even a felony count of basically attacking a police officer. And
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I have to say that if you had told me that there was actual video.
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It's not great video, but it's a decent video of this incident,
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I would have said, oh good, let me see that. I'm quite
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confident this is going to substantiate my view that Scotty Scheffler did nothing wrong.
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And if you'd said to me, you know, what's the video going to
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look like, I would have probably predicted that it was at least a little
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bit worse than what we actually saw, because I guess it's an inartful way
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of me saying even I was stunned at what a complete fucking nothing burger that
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whole episode really was even I thought there must be something that happened, even
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if it got misunderstood or misconstrewed. Nothing happened here. And in fact,
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based upon the video, again it's not a great video, but you can
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make a pretty strong argument based on the videos that we have, that it
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was clearly the police officer that was at fault. That the police officer basically
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attacked Scotty Scheffler's car and there was no dragging of the police officer. The
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police officer lied in the police report. I mean this, I mean Scotty
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Scheffler did absolutely, positively nothing wrong, and I was sure that that was
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the case because I can tell somebody's character, and Scottie Scheffler is the nicest
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guy in maybe all of sports, and the idea that he would do anything
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purposely wrong towards a police officer or assault them with his car is just patently
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absurd. Now, the idea that a police officer might make a mistake dark
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and the rain and he, you know, he might ruin his pads somehow
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because he you know, he may he fell on his butt or who the
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hell knows what happened that that police officer could decide to take it out on
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a celebrity and get his fifteen minutes of fame or in this case, infamy.
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That's certainly possible, and it certainly appears as if that's what occurred.
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But the charges against Scotty Scheffler have not yet been dropped, and this is
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becoming a more and more ridiculous situation. You would think that after these videos
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came out that that would be the end of it, but his arraignment got
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delayed, and the local DA who's clearly going for his fifteen minutes of fame,
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is fighting this at every step and already raising the specter that somehow Scotty
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Scheffler is getting, you know, celebrity treatment, which is exactly the opposite
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of what transpired here. So I don't know what's going to happen. Scheffler's
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lawyers have made it very very clear it's you drop all the charges or we're
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going to trial, which I one hundred percent agree with. I think that's
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absolutely positively right, because there is zero chance of Scottie Scheffler getting convicted on
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any of these charges, absolutely zero. And the fact that he has not
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unleashed on the police officer individually, and the Louisville Police Department in general is
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yet another testament to his character where he is a much better man than I
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am, because I would be going nuclear on these assholes. I mean,
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this is an absolute abomination. And he lost out on a chance to win
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the PGA Championship because of this fiasco. I mean, you can make a
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very strong argument now. Who knows if he could have won it anyway,
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because Xander Schoffley played fantastic, but he would have had at least a chance,
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and this episode obviously ended that, but the legal battle is not yet
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over now. When it came to the media coverage of this, even I
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was a bit stunned that there were some major media members, specifically Stephen A.
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Smith of ESPN, a guy who I have had a loathing of for
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a very very long time, specifically over the whole Penn State Joe Paterno Jerry
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Sandusky case, but I've also been complementary of because sometimes underline, sometimes when
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it comes to race issues, Stephen A. Smith, who's black, has
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actually been pretty reasonable, even came somewhat close to endorsing Donald Trump before stepping
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back from that and having to basically apologize. But he on a couple of
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different occasions he has said some things in the realm of race that were frankly
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decently reasonable given the low standards of ESPN. Well, he really embarrassed himself
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on this Scotti Scheffler deal because he somehow thought and I guess this goes back
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to his lack of judgment or rush to judgment when it comes to things like
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the Penn State Joe Paterno and Jerry Sandusky scandal, which he clearly rushed to
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a totally false judgment, had very bad instincts on that story. Well,
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his instincts were equally horrendous here because somehow his instincts were telling him that Scotty
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Scheffler was getting preferential treatment, And why don't we have a bodycam video?
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The bodycam video is being censored. If it was Tiger Woods, we would
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have a bodycam video, Like, how fucking stupid are you, Steven Aismith.
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First of all, the idea that you didn't understand that Scotty Shuffer wouldn't
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be capable of doing this is strike widen. I mean that tells me right
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there you don't have a good judge character. But number two, so this
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is a conspiracy how does it make sense. So the same department that is
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responsible for Scotty Scheffer getting a felony charge over a situation where nobody got hurt
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in the middle of the PGA Championship is also covering for him by making sure
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that there is no bodycam video because Stephen Ay was implying very strongly that the
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bodycam video would not be good for Scotty Scheffler and that's why it's not going
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to be made public. Well, no, it's not going to be made
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public because it doesn't exist because the police officer didn't turn it on against policy.
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And frankly, he's probably lucky that, even though he's apparently being rebuked
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internally and punished in some sort of way for not following policy. My guess
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is that that bodycam video of it existed, it would be very, very
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very bad for him. So but there's regardless, there's clearly no con inspiracy.
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And then to raise Tiger Woods, which of course has implicit racial implications
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because Tiger is perceived as a black man, even though he refers to himself
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as Cobblinasian, all sorts of mixed race. But somehow the implication was that
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this wouldn't happen if it was Tiger Woods, because Tiger Woods is black.
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Well, the hilarity of that is not only is it absurd, but we
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already know what happens when it comes to Tiger Woods and a real car accident
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that's actually his fault, one that effectively ended his competitive career a couple of
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years ago in Palas Verne's, California, not far from where I live,
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actually very very very close to where I used to live. I know that
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road very very well, and we're never going to know the truth of what
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happened there because Tiger won't even answer any goddamn questions. And frankly, the
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Los Angeles County Shares the Department was very protective of Tiger in that whole situation.
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He's never been forced, he wasn't charged with anything. He wasn't forced
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to explain what the hell was happening to mine. I don't even remember for
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sure, but I don't remember there even being a drug test or anything.
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I'm not suggesting Tiger was on drugs. I just don't understand what the hell
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was happening. Why was he going that fast on that road when I mean
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he was going to a taping that wasn't starting without Tiger Woods. There's two
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things I've never understood about people in Tiger Woods's life, living Tiger Woods's life,
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which is only a handful of people in the world. One, why
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the hell don't you have a show for everywhere you go because you can easily
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afford it. And two, why are you worried about being late? Because
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there's no such thing as being late except for a golf tournament where you have
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tea times. But unless it's a tea time, Tiger Woods can't be late
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because you don't start without Tiger Wood. But anyway, this car accident that
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almost took his life could have easily taken someone else's life had there been another
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car coming in the other direction in the lane that he crossed over during this
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very strange crash. And Tiger got kid glove treatment from the authorities. And
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so Stephen A. Smith is using Tiger Woods as the example to try to
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shame Scotty Scheffler or to try to make it look like there's a cover up
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on behalf of Scotty Scheffler. That is the kind of lack of judgment that
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someone like Stephen A. Smith has that's really completely out of the realm of
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rationality, totally out of touch with reality. And this is the highest paid,
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one of the highest paid guys at ESPN, and he's that far off
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the mark on a story that's really pretty simple, really pretty easy to discern.
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I told you about it a couple of weeks ago. I told you
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exactly what the story was, and if anything, I undersold how right I
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was gonna be, because that's exactly what the video shows. So that's it
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right now for the Scotti Scheffler story. Hopefully the charges and I do think
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eventually rationdal when he's gonna win here, and the charges will be quietly dropped
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one day and then we'll never hear about this again, and Scottie Scheffler will
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have so much class and character that he's never made gonna make a big deal
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out of it when he actually should because he got screwed over. Thanks for
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