A job worth doing well

Two weeks ago, I logged on to CNN.com to find that after more than two years of exhaustive investigation, two San Francisco Chronicle reporters had found irrefutable proof of steroid use by Barry Bonds. As I read the evidence and the evidence for the evidence, I was struck by the high level of detail that was featured in this unrelenting expose. I felt that it was a little too detailed. It's no secret to baseball fans that most of the great sluggers of the past 10 years have injected and ingested hormones that are more suitable for Mandy the Moo Cow than a human being. When asked to guess the scope of steroid use in baseball, ex-League MVPs Jose Canseco and Ken Caminiti separately estimated that 85 percent and 50 percent were users, respectively. This information has been out for months. Yet somehow, Barry Bonds has been elevated to a special status, above the likes of disgraced superstars Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro.

The difference between Bonds and the rest of these fallen heroes is that while McGwire, Sosa and Palmeiro are seen as "fan-friendly," Bonds has always been viewed as insufferable by the sports media. Unable to hide antipathy, Bonds has never failed to let the media know that he just doesn't like them. The press has never been slow to reciprocate the feeling, and the product of this standoff has been the formation of Barry Bonds, arch villain of San Francisco. America's legacy of racism may lead some (especially in the black community) to speculate that Bonds is the newest member for the fraternity of forsaken black athletes, athletes (overwhelmingly male) who were a little too uppity for white America's taste, with a young Muhammad Ali (or Jim Brown, take your pick) manning the helm as president. The demonization of Barry Bonds appears to be a nice fit for our story, but such a one-dimensional theory ignores the media's use of demonization as a common device, expanding its use far beyond the scope of the sports world.

The "Shot Heard 'Round the World' " no longer belongs to the New York Giants of 1951. Ownership has been transferred to Vice President Dick Cheney, who accidentally shot his friend (Cheney says acquaintance) on a hunting trip back in the great state of Texas. This insignificant event should have been relegated to nothing more than a five minute news segment. Instead it evolved into a media frenzy, which then evolved into a larger discussion (led by Maureen Dowd of The New York Times) about the suitability of Cheney to even hold the second-highest office in the land. Excluding Cheney's brooding interview with Fox News anchor Brit Hume, the entire episode carried a strange sense of carnival, something I thought was reserved for pseudo-news shows like "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart."

As is appropriate for the Barry Bonds of politics, Dick Cheney has been portrayed by the media as a dark, devious and dastardly figure. His tendency for secrecy (and overall evil-looking appearance) has led many journalists to believe that Cheney has nothing but bad intentions planned for our country. As a Democrat, I should assume that he just might, but the mainstream media should disregard whatever vendettas they have when they are reporting the news.

Cheney may indeed be the emperor to Dubya's Darth Vader, and Barry Bonds seems to believe that he really is a farm animal. But the media's conduct in both situations ultimately distracts America from the serious dialogues that are taking place in both politics and the sports world. As Cheney cringed in the limelight, the PATRIOT Act was rammed through Congress and the genocide in Sudan raged on, still without a pledge of U.S. military intervention. And as Bonds is "exposed," Major League Baseball (MLB) continues to feature little diversity among team managers and the lack of a salary cap causes MLB to suffer from a lack of competitiveness in certain divisions, most notably the American League East.

These issues, both large and small, tend to be forgotten when the best in the business are obsessed with pursuing insignificant stories that have little impact. Americans are busy working, going to school and trying to raise the next generation of Americans. It's the media's job to sift through the garbage that pervades every news cycle, so that we don't have to. When Barry Bonds and QuailGate are leading stories, then that job is not being carried out well. David Smart is a freshman from Los Angeles, Calif. He can be reached at dsmart@princeton.edu.