Golfweek Fires Editor

[PalmettoStatesport]

Did anyone else see where Golfweek fired the editor who came up with the idea for the noose cover? Amazing, but NOT surprising. What's other's thoughts?

[goalmouth]

Just one firing? Hell, the whole company usually signs off on a cover.

[TheSportsPredictor]

That's pretty ironic.

[Ace]

Didn't see that. Who was the editor? And unless he pushed it through against everyone's objections, I don't see how it's one person's fault, though I guess the top dog gets the blame.

[MileHigh]

Dave Seanor.

http://www.golf.com/golf/tours_news/article/0,28136,1704872,00.html

[wickedwritah]

Don't mag covers get approved by those at the top of the masthead, including the publisher?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/19/sports/golf/19magazine.html

Golfweek magazine, which published a cover with a noose set against a purplish sky to illustrate its coverage of a controversial comment about Tiger Woods, announced Friday that it had fired Dave Seanor, the editor who approved the cover.

[zebracoy]

The idea that anybody OK'd that is beyond me. It's unfortunate that only one person took the fall, but at least one person did.

[Ace]

Oh, well, congrats to new editor Jeff Babineau, I guess.

[gandhithegreat]

Did everyone miss the memo? Journalism is dead. If you write something advertisers don't like, you either fire the people responsible or they pull their advertising. My favorite quote is Finchem saying that Golfweek is attempting to inflame a situation that is coming to a "proper conclusion." Says who...I don't think it's come to that conclusion. When dies Finchem get fired for allowing The Golf Channel to hire Tighlman?

[MileHigh]

This will only continue because Tiger plays next week at Torrey Pines ... and Tilghman returns to the booth for the tournament.

[gandhithegreat]

I think the KKK is planning a picket...

[fishwrapper]

GolfWeek is a shill. That's the problem.
This is a news reactionary cover over the Kelly Tilghman comment. She kept her job.
We can argue the level of execution or concept or taste. What's not in question is the newsworthiness.
To think Dave Seanor made that decision in a vacuum is naive.

[eyeonsportsmedia]

"Our wish is that one regretful error does not erase more than 30 years of service we've dedicated to this industry."

Errors are accidental. This cover was intentional.

And as I said on the other thread, when I told my wife that he had been "replaced", she asked "What about the other 5-6 people who were in the room and did not have the balls to stand up and do the right thing?"

[playthrough]

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/index.php/topic,51442.125.html
(though I wouldn't call it a d_b)

How about this quote from the Times story:

Seanor said on Thursday that his intention was not to be “racially provocative,� but to illustrate a noose tightening around Tilghman, the Golf Channel and golf. He said: “There weren’t a lot of other ideas for the cover; either you put Kelly out there or this image, which is emblematic of what this controversy is about.�

Talk about not saying much for this guy's editing skills or his coworkers'. The ONLY choices for this were Tilghman and a noose?

[wickedwritah]

To think Dave Seanor made that decision in a vacuum is naive.

And that's my problem with this. The art director and the publisher were in on it, too, and they get off scot-free.

[Ace]

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/index.php/topic,51442.125.html
(though I wouldn't call it a d_b)

How about this quote from the Times story:

Seanor said on Thursday that his intention was not to be “racially provocative,� but to illustrate a noose tightening around Tilghman, the Golf Channel and golf. He said: “There weren’t a lot of other ideas for the cover; either you put Kelly out there or this image, which is emblematic of what this controversy is about.�

Talk about not saying much for this guy's editing skills or his coworkers'. The ONLY choices for this were Tilghman and a noose?

Or Tilghman in a noose.

[Football_Bat]

Well, Al Sharpton got his trophy, in a roundabout way. He can go home now.

[gandhithegreat]

What about Al Sharpton and a noose on the cover of lily-white Golfweek?

[terrier]

   Not surprising, in the butt-kissing golf-corporate America nexus.
   To me, it was one of those classic '60s George Lois Esquire covers. I'd probably have OKed it too.
   May Dave Seanor quickly find more lucrative work.

[black dude with pompano]

Let's be honest about this. He wasn't fired because of racially offensive imagery. He was fired because Golfweek is a glorified p.r. vehicle, and the higher-ups were terrified that this might prevent the tour from bringing this "unfortunate situation" to a tidy conclusion.

He got fired for attempting journalism at a place where that concept was foreign.

I wish him the best.

[txscoop]

America is so damn sensitive.

[SixToe]

What if the cover shot was a noose on top of a garbage can, or an illustration used to indicate the noose was being thrown away?

[dooley_womack1]

He got fired because Brad Renfro wasn't on the cover.

[playthrough]

If Seanor was trying to, as he said yesterday, begin a dialogue on diversity in golf, how could he think such a cover would accomplish that? As I said on the other thread, maybe minorities stay away from the game because there are people associated with it who think nooses are acceptable cover art. It's flat-out ignorant.

That said, I'll agree that the firing was a c.y.a. move by the mag. No one higher than the fired editor knew about this cover before publication?

[TwoGloves]

I used to get both GolfWeek and GolfWorld but I dropped GolfWeek because it basically sucked. I thought the cover was a bit sensationalistic, especially since the whole thing happened a couple weeks ago. But to fire the guy is a joke. Talk about having no balls.