“Winning seems to absolve many things. So does money.”
This quote spoke out to me because it highlights how people are able to get away with things because they have fame and fortune. It shows that we are not all equal under the law. Just like Kobe, many other star athletes and celebrities have gotten away with criminal activities, because of their status, and their ability to pay off fines.
People stand by their favorite celebrities because they only remember the feelings that they have attached to them. The crimes also do not have any relevance in their day to day lives. For example, when Kobe allegedly raped the victim, we (or the media) didn’t immediately think about women suffering. We didn’t think about the possibility of this happening to our daughters, sisters, nieces, friends, cousins. We didn’t get angry at him. We listened in for the “tea,” we wanted all the details on the scandal. Instead, most fans only lament to the possibility of him behind bars, not being able to give his usual superstar performance on the courts, representing their city, and their beloved game.
It is really easy to be blinded by their stardom, because the role they play on screen, on stage, or in the stadium is that of a superhero, and fictional heroes have no inherent faults.
I think you pointed out very important ideas. The media blatantly decided to ignore the scandal, but the more important question is why did the stations collectively explicitly or implicitly decide not to report it. Personally, I attribute the circumstance to 2 reasons.
Firstly, individuals must realize that the media at the end of the day is a for profit company. Although it is perceived that it tries to report accurate data to do society a civil service, but sometimes it is not always the case. Evidently, here, the media omits the circumstances, and I believe they do so because a story against a famous celebrity would hurt their ratings tremendously. It is like FOX reporting negative stories about President Trump or CNN trashing Joe Biden. Each has their respective fan bases and going against the viewer base hurts the station and profits for shareholders.
Secondly, individuals have the fault of hindsight bias. We tend to look back at a situation after all the events and say this is what we should have done and obviously we made a mistake; however, in doing so there are critical details that we are leaving out. The case came out in July 2003. Clearly, this is a different time than 2020 and the events between the times create a different culture and environment. For instance, the “Me Too” movement and the awareness around sexual assault was not widespread in 2003. This is a critical event that contrasts the 2 times. Consequently, it is easy to look back and speculate in what should have happened. Possibly society was not ready for the news and it could have caused more harm than good.
Overall, while it is evident that the media was unable to covering the story, I think being very hasty and quickly judging the scenario like it was a clear an obvious mistake to do so is unwise. The circumstances and times have changed and to look back and put the case in 2020 and decide a broadcasting verdict based on this culture seems unjust.