If you need a reason to never give Los Angeles Times sports columnist Bill Dwyre a modicum of credibility ever again, just read today's column.

In a special Martin Luther King Jr. Day column – special, if only because it touches upon race in media – Dwyre argues that our industry's terrible and mostly ineffectual approach to discussing society's ultimate taboo is because "we blog before we report, when it should be the other way around. We write more about ourselves than we do about our subjects."

Okay, that second sentence is true, which is likely why Dwyre got this argument so wrong.

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See what we did there? We took the cover line of the Golfweek story that's caused an uproar and used it with a clever twist that makes it suddenly relevant to this bit of news: Golfweek owner Turnstile Publishing fired editor and VP Dave Seanor for the noose cover.

In trying to deliver a current story about Golf Channel anchor Kelly Tilghman saying competitors should "lynch" Tiger Woods – a black guy! – Golfweek stuck a photo of a noose on its cover. Its reception, to be concise, was: poor.

"We knew that image would grab attention, but I didn't anticipate the enormity of it," says Seanor. "There's been a huge, negative reaction. I've gotten so many e-mails. It's a little overwhelming."

Among the complainers? U.S. PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, who called the cover "outrageous and irresponsible. [...] It smacks of tabloid journalism." Not sure where Finchem was when Tilghman reduced the PGA's star player to a slave, but anyhow.

In matters such as these, we turn to resident Black People Expert and Stereohyped editor Lauren Williams, who gives us a perspective white gay Jews might not have.

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