From Tiger Woods? On his end of the insulated world, sure, there seems to be some of that going on, if you read his Web site statements right above the link to "buy more, save more" at the Tiger Store.

From sports journalism, that's just where it all begins.

In the absence of solid, ethical reporting this week related to Woods, his car accident, his health and his absence from his own tournament at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, the mainstream media has managed to produce apeculiarly unspectacular performance and one it seems OK with moving forward.

In the days after Woods banged up his Caddy at his home in Florida and suffered some injuries that apparently prevented him from heading to Sherwood Country Club this week, a few storylines unfolded. The traditional media came out as one big wrinkled mess, entangled in the cord that connects the steaming hot iron to the buzz from electrical current, sent to the cleaners.

In one swooping, lazy, mismanaged week, the mainstreamers managed not only to generously allow the tabloids, bloggers and personal-space invaders to do all their dirty work, but they resigned themselves to a regurgitation process that went against all natural instincts.

All that septic tank-diving done by the National Enquirer, TMZ.com and USWeekly was dutifully credited - and blindly accepted as credible information.

Hey, here's a scoop: Those enterprises might, in fact, have been ahead of this one, but they don't care one bit about authenticity, accuracy or audacity.
That's not their mission statement. Visit NationalEnquirer.com and see the large flashing graphic that reads: "Got News? We'll Pay Big Bucks. Call or Email Us."

While they pay the finders fee, the mainstream media pays them more than just lip service. They paid everything forward here and thrived on unsubstantiated rumor because, well, you probably knew about it anyway, and if it didn't make note of it, it looked as if it was lagging behind.

It was, but for good reason. Not one, however, editors or writers fearing their jobs might be cut next could live with.

The National Enquirer, for one, has reason to celebrate another step over the line of dignified demarcation. On its home page, it notes the "bastion of the Fourth Estate - Newsweek magazine - has named the National Enquirer's world exclusives on disgraced presidential candidate John Edwards as one of its top Scandals of The Decade."

Bully for them. And, in this, bully for allowing the rest of the fourth estate to behave like teenage schoolgirls who couldn't stop re-texting.

Days and weeks and months from now - which become measured more like years and decades in today's 24/7 news cycle - the scholars who study what's left of sports journalism likely will earmark this period as a tipping point when the mainstream media gave up, gave in and gave one of their worst shots at professionalism.

Black Wednesday began when Woods released a powerful five-paragraph statement admitting to "personal sins" that "should not require press releases" and his "problems" that "shouldn't have to mean public confessions."

In that moment, the mainstream media, held back for too long like a zit ready to pop, seized the opportunity to read between the lines and, for whatever noble reasons of integrity and responsibility, let everything go.

On Wednesday morning, CNN.com reported: "Tiger Woods apologizes as gossip magazine reports affair" and then referred to how US Weekly has a transcript of someone sounding like him asking a 24-year-old cocktail waitress to do him a "huge favor" and take his name off her phone. In the very next sentence, it read: "CNN could not independently confirm that the voice on the recording was Woods."

But it ran the transcript anyway. Bravo.

Same with the Associated Press on Thursday morning, with the sentence: "The Associated Press could not confirm Woods was the caller."

Why bother at this point?

On ABCNews.com, amid entertainment headlines that reported "Cindy Crawford Admits to Botox" and "Meredith Baxter: I'm Gay," Woods' supposed female acquaintance had her name in a headline. What a proud moment it must be in the Disney family.

Now ESPN, which had been relying all week on TMZ.com "reports," could join forces with what ABC reported, which, of course, was only reporting whatever "sources" US Weekly was using.

So that must mean we're all covered here. Covered in what, we're not exactly sure.

By Wednesday night, all the three network news shows played an audio snippet of Woods - again, not confirmed, but since Charles Gibson, Brian Williams and Katie Couric introduced the pieces, they must be legit.

Who cares if the Billy Bushes and Star Joneses of the infotainment media hashed this all out in roundtable form on the "Access Hollywood" and "The Insider" shows that ironically followed these national news shows. That's what they do.

If it's Tiger season, all we've managed to do is point the gun in the wrong direction.

(Wait, we just heard TMZ reported Tiger has offered to tear up his original $20 million pre-nup and offer Elin a $100 million deal if she sticks it out with him ... how long will it take for that to reach ESPN's news desk? Oh, that's TMI?)

At least Woods already has issued his statement of "profound apology" for his actions.

When will the sports media do the same?

The message is clear: Script is out of Tiger's hands

Rich Lerner opened the Golf Channel's coverage of the Chevron World Challenge on Thursday as the cameras pointed toward picturesque sites of the Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks: "Beautiful day in Southern California and a welcome respite from a tumultuous week with the tournament host Tiger Woods at the center of a sad saga and out of this field for the second straight year."

If Woods wanted a chance to script that opening as he watched, perhaps, back in his Florida home, it only plays into the dynamic that Woods, no matter how much he's tried, has had trouble controlling the media message this week.

Cryptic postings he supposedly authored for his Web site have only fueled wider speculation. But with some seemingly admission of guilt, Golf Channel studio analyst Brandel Chamblee added this during Thursday's opening: "What have we learned in the last week? That despite strong evidence to the contrary, the last dozen years or so on the golf course (Woods might seem invincible, but) ... off the golf course, Tiger Woods is human. Our hero has clay feet. These transient lifestyles ... come with some trappings that most people would struggle with. That does not make it right, that just makes him human.

"And as a human he has the ability to change his behavior and he has the right to do it with some degree of privacy."

Golf Channel's coverage continues today and moves to NBC for the third and final rounds over the weekend.

Syndicated radio show host Dan Patrick nailed it down in best assessing the problems Woods had this week in the message-maker department.

"People think we know Tiger ... We don't know him," Patrick said on his show Wednesday. "And Tiger wants to control everything. That's where this is going to come back to hurt him. It already had.

"He wants to control the media. Well, in his world, he can control the (mainstream) media.

"This 'other' media that's out there - National Enquirer, TMZ - they don't care. They don't want to be your friend. They're trying to get a story so people will buy their magazine. That media that covers (Woods) now is the media he never sees.

"CBS covers a golf event, he can say, 'I want Peter Kostis to interview me.' (On) NBC, 'I don't want Jimmy Roberts to interview me.' He can control that. He can't say, 'I don't want TMZ covering me. ... I don't want Deadspin covering me. I don't want SportsbyBrooks doing something on me. I don't want the National Enquirer in my neighborhood."'