Rou

Michael Vick is the quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons. If you pay attention to sports, you know he recently got into some trouble. At a home in his name (I think he said his brother lived there), they found some dogs. Apparently they were being used for dog fights, or some such. There is a lot of controversy concerning it, because Michael says they're not his, and he doesn't live there, he just owns it, but the police say that they think he knew about it.

Whatever, that's the basic part of the story. Famous person may have done wrong and now they're looking into the issue.

Early this week, suddenly, the focus shifted entirely. Suddenly, Clinton Portis was the football player in question. He's a running back for the Washington Redskins. During a recent interview, he was asked about the Vick dog situation.

His reply went sorta like this: He doesn't see what the big deal is. If Vick fights dogs, so be it. Dog fighting isn't good, but there are a lot worse issues in the world, so he's amazed at how much focus the media is putting on this just because of the possibility of a scandal involving a famous player. He suggested that there were probably dozens of other dog fighting rings out there, but they don't get press coverage because they don't involve Vick.

It's a bad PR statement. I admit it. But, it was an off the cuff remark at a press conference for a totally unrelated subject. It's not like he had time to organize his thoughts or vet it through his agent. He just said what he thought.

So naturally... Vick isn't the story anymore. It's all about Portis. Which just drives me up a fucking wall. They've spent almost as much, if not MORE, time talking about Portis's comments than they have about the fucking target of the investigation, Vick. It drives me up a wall, it really does.

Seriously... let's focus on the issue people. The PR gaff isn't the issue. The broken law is the fucking issue. That's not juicy enough for the vultures out there though. They want to see if they can get more famous people involved. Sell more headlines.

Sickening really. People like to shrug it off by saying media is just trying to run their business and sell papers. That's true. But there is also a responsibility to the public to talk about the actual news. Not the concocted hub-bub around celebrities when they're asked about issues that don't directly relate to them.

It may be a business, but their model sucks.