Between the 24-hour news cycle and our obsession with reality TV, celebrity gossip, and professional athletes; the American public has unprecedented access to public figures. We know the ugly details of Jon and Kate’s divorce, the specifics of Michael Jackson’s prescription drug addictions, who celebrities are dating from the moment they begin holding hands, as well as a myriad of other things that people 20 years ago would never have been privy to (and probably couldn’t care less about).

So by now you must have heard about Tiger Woods’ car accident the morning after Thanksgiving –  unless you live under a rock or don’t follow sports at all like my girlfriend (who only knows about this story because of the gossip websites). Apparently he crashed his SUV into a fire hydrant and a tree while backing out of his driveway. How he somehow managed to do that while doing what many teenagers are allowed to do when they don’t even have a license I have no clue. I mean his air bags didn’t even deploy because he was driving so slow!

Now, all of this is a matter of public record. Let’s face it, you don’t become a billion dollar athlete without everyone knowing every public incident that involves you — including minor traffic accidents. None of this bothers me. What does bother me is how this man’s private life is now the main issue. Woods may be the main story at every PGA Tour event (that’s another issue entirely, BTW, because it’s not like another 60 golfers are competing in these events or anything…), but he is a human being. Just because we know his name/face and he happens to be the best golfer in the world (which he earned by working his butt off) does not give us the right to exploit his private life.

I know the argument, so please spare me the following comments:

• “The public has a right to know!”
• “If he didn’t get in the accident in the first place, then he wouldn’t deserve it.”
• “He makes $100 million dollars a year, so he better deal with it!”

As Peter Griffin might say, it’s that last argument that really grinds my gears. Nothing shows how jealous the American public (and media) are of people that live more affluent lives than them like the good old fashioned “they make a lot of money, so I can be a complete ass to them” thought process.

Here’s my thought: Put yourself in Tiger Woods’ Nikes and walk a mile. How would you feel if your dirty laundry became front page news for the entire Western world? Of course, you’d understand that the public deserves answers right? I mean, you make all that money so who cares if the whole world knows about your little domestic dispute with your wife.

Get real.

I’m sure there are more people out there — with the billion or so sports blogs out there (insert joke about this one) — that feel this way, but the only sports writer I’ve come across this week that defended Tiger’s right to privacy was ESPN columnist Gene Wojciechowski. He — like me — couldn’t care less about this whole situation. And you know something’s ridiculous when Shaq is the voice of reason.

“I’m not going to be like everybody else and say off-the-wall comments,” O’Neal said. “I just hope he’s OK. The problem going on is when you have people disguising as media putting out reports, and then people believing what they read. We don’t know what’s fact, we don’t know what’s true. We just hope he’s OK.”

There is a silver lining to this whole fiasco, but I had to look hard to find it. Check out the title of this article (it is most definitely worthy of Headlines on Leno): Tiger Woods at fault in one-car accident. Say what you will about the journalism industry, but at least we know that real investigative reporting is alive and well!

Woodward and Bernstein would be proud. That is until they realized that all of this about a FRIGGIN’ GOLFER!!

So what if Tiger was fighting with his wife — that’s what married people do! And who gives a sh*t if he has a mistress. What a shocker: a rich athlete that sleeps around. STOP THE PRESSES!!!

To me, the real problem here is us. People are out for blood, and it seems like they’ll get it. But what really does this all solve? Are we really gaining anything from learning about Woods’ private life? Does it improve our experience as sports fans to know that he could be cheating on his wife or that he can’t back his car down his driveway?

No, we all lose this game.

1. I can’t use the internet during my day job, so I miss out on all the daily chatter.

2. Living on the West Coast, the early games come on at 4 p.m. with me still two hours from freedom.

3. I have only watched ONE Phillies game all season from start to finish. It’s kind of a drag when you can’t watch your favorite teams play night in and night out. Sure I’d miss some games back when I lived in Jersey, but at least I’d catch the highlights. Fat chance of that happening on Sports Center

With no end in sight to any of these problems, I thought this little case of writer’s block wasn’t going away any time soon.

Funny how Twitter works.

In an effort to try to kick start some creativity (be careful what you wish for), I’ve been getting heavy into this little microblogging site. And since Oprah’s little endorsement, Twitter has gone from a thing some people did to a thing that most people seem to be doing. So I’ve been a happy little camper checking it when I come home at night, looking at the updates from my friends all around the country, funny celebrities and of course some big time sports writers.

Like most sports fans these days, I spend a good amount of time hating on the media. Let’s be serious, the sports media is an easy target these days. For starters, the major sports networks all run too many articles that are based on some wild accusations or leaking information from “unnamed sources.” When we’re not hearing from a “prominent member of [insert organization],” we’re fed a steady diet of ongoing soap operas (i.e. steroids in baseball; any story about Terrell Owens, Adam Jones, Chad Ocho Cinco, or Barry Bonds; or even when an athlete has the audacity to be quoted as saying he thinks he team should win its next game — THE HORRORS!).

Oh that and Brett Favre. By a raise of hands, let’s see who isn’t sick of hearing about Brett Favre? (Please put your hand down, John Madden.) Look, we can all agree he’s a Hall of Famer and an all-time gamer, having never missed a start in the NFL. In many ways, Peter King — Sports Illustrated’s uber football columnist — is one of the journalists (Mr. Madden, again, please put your hand down!) with the most access to Brett. Great for, you, Peter and your career, but it’s a loss for the rest of us sports fans. If he can still be the top story on every major sports news outlet when he is no longer a top-flight quarterback, something is going wrong in the sports-writing world. If you take into account the amount of space devoted to him, Favre has somehow become overrated in the public eye. In a way, Favre has become the greatest overrated sports athlete of all time now.

What a weird ending to a great career. In many ways, this could never have happened without the media. Just know this, most sports fans really don’t care about the Brett Favre situation anymore.

The Favre storyline must be stopped!!

Now it’s one thing to whine in private, but it’s another thing entirely when you basically make fun of someone in the media in public. That’s the thing with the internet: You never really know who is watching. It might be Peter King.

Here’s how it all started.

After reading a few back-and-forth tweets from NFL Network anchor Rich Eisen and King, I couldn’t help but notice the affection these two share.

DrSportsFan: @richeisen and @SI_PeterKing are downright bromancing on the twitski. Twit that!

Now, reading that out loud right now, that sounds a little bit mean-spirited. That was not my goal, but rather I was just busting on two highly successful people to my 30 or so followers. But I wasn’t through with King yet. No, I felt the need to make fun of his “professionalism.” Smooth move, Dr. Sportsfan!

SI_PeterKing: All right, King. Enough of the fun. Get your head into the story you’re writing for SI next week. You’ll all want to read it, by the way.

DrSportsFan: @SI_PeterKing really will I like it?!?! c’mon now. ur a professional

For those of you living under a rock (the rest of you non-rock dwellers, please skip to the next paragraph), by merely adding “@” in front of any Twitter screen name, you now — like Heman, the Master of the Universe — have the power. Furthermore, Twitter has the nice little tool that lets you view any recent messages that have been updated “at” you.

I’ve been a little chatty on Twitter lately, and I might have gotten a little too frisky. If it appears that I was making fun of Peter King and Rich Eisen’s friendly twitter chatter the other night — well it’s because I was. Who cares, really, right? And when I poked fun at King when he said that we’d like his column, again who was going to read it, my 30 or so followers?

Wrong.

SI_PeterKing: @DrSportsFan : What does that mean, exactly?

So I was a tad bit surprised that King had noticed the polite — make that rude — comments I’d been making to him. Ok. I was shocked. As John Stewart said regarding his wonderful little visit to CNN’s Crossfire, it’s uncomfortable!

As for an answer to your question: Peter, I just thought it was funny that you felt the need to plug your column on twitter. You write for Sports Illustrated. There isn’t a sports fan on this continent that doesn’t know about SI. While we plug and market our columns for Taking Back Sports, I couldn’t have imagined someone with your career needing to plug a column. It plugs itself. Monday Morning Quarterback is a must-read for all football fans. You are one of those sports writers that transcend the sporting world.

In a way, I’m actually glad that you plugged your column. Even though I used your words to make fun of you, it’s a pretty neat thing that you can convey your thoughts and feelings directly to your readers — of course you do have to deal with their thoughts as well.

But since I have your attention, Peter — and I imagine that you are quite a busy man — I’d like to take this grand opportunity to ask you some questions, sports fan to sports writer:

1. Why is it our first inclination to talk about the negativity in the sports world? I always thought that sports were meant to be fun; and while I know that there is some serious money in sports, can’t we forget about all that when we turn on SportsCenter to watch the highlights of our favorite teams (and not see an ex-jock’s scripted reaction)?

2. Do you think the sports fan experience has peaked? With economics coming between the common, middle-class fan and the rich and elite owners and players, it seems as though sports fans and those that work in sports are further apart than ever before. Are we even the same race of people?

3. Are you sick of writing about Favre? Just wondering…

4. Do you love your job? I always thought that being a sports writer must be the greatest job in the world, and you get to cover the greatest sport of the all — the NFL. You write a great column every week, and it is read by thousands — if not millions — of sports fans. But the question remains, do you still love your job?

5. Have you ever interviewed an athlete that was so crazy (*cough* T.O.) that many of his quotes (*cough* Ochocinco) were just preposterous?

6. What do you think the future of sports writing will be? Obviously blogging already plays a major role, but is the career sports writer all but finished? (Take it from me, there are almost no sports-writing jobs available to any young writers.)

In the meantime, thanks for all the good writing and for your question — even if it was because you were annoyed with me.

I hope I clarified things, but please keep doing things your way anyway. Even if you are a coffee nerd!

But if you get the chance, could you please say hi to Brett Favre for me? I hear he’s looking to possibly make a comeback…