↵↵
Jared Allen Profanely Defending His Fiancee, The Latest Scoop From Cell Phone Nation
↵
↵The hand-wringing among those in the media old guard had barely even started to subside from last week’s leaked cell phone video in which Cowboys owner Jerry Jones made disparaging remarks about Bill Parcells and Tim Tebow while drinking at a bar. Instead of now petering out, the debate about ethics in sports journalism will likely be rekindled with TMZ’s release of a video of Jared Allen making very profane and violent threats toward a man who used a vulgar term to insult his fiancee at a bar.↵↵While the news value of Jones’ statement in this video could reasonably be argued, Allen’s outburst isn’t relevant at all to the sports world in anything but the most tangential ways. The situation doesn’t lead to a fight and Allen does what presumably all men would do in that situation: stand up for the woman in their life when she was crudely insulted. Obviously incensed, Allen barks, “I’ll break your [expletive] neck, pretty boy. And then I’ll write a [expletive] check to your name, too.” It might be shocking language, but given the circumstance, who exactly could blame him for extreme remarks?↵
↵
↵It's another object lesson for celebrities about any behavior that deviates from even the most mundane broadcast to the masses. Because said masses around them have the capability to disseminate footage to a wide audience. That's shouldn't exactly be news to most professional athletes. When speaking to Hines Ward last week, he referenced the Jerry Jones video as yet another cautionary tale for being guarded with his behavior in public. It's why the people in Big Ben's entourage were having college kids delete photos and videos they took of Roethlisberger partying last month.
↵
↵In another telling example, I was shouted at by Warren Sapp and ordered to delete a video I took of him playing the Madden video game with a child during a promotional event for the game's launch two years ago. And that was in a place teeming with journalists and other assorted media people. While Sapp's reaction might be more extreme than most athletes, it might become more and more the norm now that they find that not only all of their actions are being recorded, but that the media finds them noteworthy if they deviate even slightly from how we think they should be carrying themselves. ↵
↵
This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.
See More:
