I did not see this yesterday morning, but read about it a lot when I got back from running errands. A-Rod's lawyer was being interviewed on the Today Show. Lauer waits for the Lawyer to say that he would like nothing more than to discuss Rodriguez’s drug-testing history and related matters, but that he was prevented from doing so by the confidentiality clause in baseball’s testing program (see: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/sports/baseball/rodriguezs-lawyer-calls-baseballs-offer-a-trap.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0 ).
Lauer barely manages not to wet himself before dropping the news that he has a signed released from MLB, and that if the lawyer will sign it too, both sides would be freed to speak about all the details surrounding the testing and allegations of PED use by A-Rod (see for the video: http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/23223570/watch-arods-attorney-finds-himself-in-tight-spot-on-today-show ) The lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, back peddles furiously, does not sign the waiver, and drops a pretty big counter bomb himself - that the Yankees knew Rodriguez’s labrum was torn prior to last year's ALCS. But most of what I have seen - including a piece on one of those snarky sports talk shows with a semi-attractive blond woman doing a bad Michelle Beadle impression this morning - is summarizing this as A-Rod's lawyer getting punked by Lauer. I have never liked A-Rod, dating back to his days in Seattle and Texas. I would love to see him never play another game, as he is about to pass my all time favorite baseball player on the home run list. And I do not like the Yankees. But to me the main story here is not that A-Rod's lawyer is a weasel, but that NBC News (I am assuming Today is still produced by the News division) decided to basically conspire with one side in a high profile dispute that it was supposed to be objectively reporting in order to make the other side look bad on its air. There is no way that any competent lawyer was going to sign a legal waiver with that much at stake on live television, and Lauer obviously knew that. It was stunt television - ambush journalism, whatever you want to call it. A more responsible move would have been to have given the lawyer the document at least a few hours before the interview, let him read and research it, and then ask him about it in the interview. What this looks like is that Lauer has teamed up with Bud Selig and MLB to trash A-Rod. Selig has developed a huge hard on for A-Rod, and has basically decided to use all of his considerable resources to bring him down in some kind of personal vendetta. I have no love for A-Rod, but I detest Selig and almost everything he has done to baseball since he took it over in a bloodless coup. In my view nobody, not Barry Bonds or Jose Canseco or A-Rod or Victor Conte or Anthony Bosch is more responsible for the role of PED's in baseball over the last 25 years than Bud Selig. I don't expect Lauer to conspire with A-Rod's lawyer to gut Selig, but I do expect him to cover the high profile dispute between these two characters in something approaching a balanced fashion. NBC News appears to have chosen a side in this dispute, and is actively working with that side against the other. -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
