'Stray-Rod' hits Boston — with his wife - Baseball - MSNBC.com

'Stray-Rod' hits Boston — with his wife - Baseball - MSNBC.com

Personally I don't care what A-Rod does with his free time. If he wants to cheat on his wife, that's his demon to deal with, not mine. I also don't care, period. Why should I spend my day worrying about the moral decisions of an overpaid baseball player?

However, I do have a real problem with the wording of the articles on this so-called story, like this one from MSNBC.com. The subhead blares that A-Rod has been seen with a "bombshell," a word repeated several times throughout the article itself, along with mentioning several times that the woman he was with was a blond.

I guess this first offends me as a (former) journalist because they throw objectivity to the wind in pronouncing this woman a "bombshell." Sure, by most standards she may be considered attractive, but that is no excuse for inserting a heavily subjective (and sensationalized) word into the headline. Let the reader determine whether or not she is a bombshell and you, the journalist, keep your own opinions out of it. This is the stuff of The New York Post, not MSNBC.

Secondly, whether or not she is a "bombshell," or blond, should not even matter. Would it change the story if A-Rod was out on the town with a less-attractive burnette? If there were two different women he was out with, one blond and the other not, maybe then a clarification would be needed (big maybe), but it makes no sense to describe the same woman over and over. We get it. He was with another woman. That's all we need to know, and the inclusion of words such as "bombshell" and "blond" do nothing more than the take what was an objective story regarding a famous public figure and turn it into yellow journalist sensationalism.

Lastly, referring to this woman as a "bombshell" and "blond" is just plain disrespectful. In the entire article, only once is she referred to as simply "the woman" without at least one of the other two adjectives in front of it. She is turned into nothing but an object. Thanks to articles like this, she is no longer a woman who makes her own thoughts and decisions. She is reduced to her hair color; she is defined by her looks.

It was no surprise when The Post broke this story and turned it into the tabloid drama that it's now become. It's sad, however, to see reputable news sources like MSNBC play into the sensationalist game. I guess I just expected more journalistic integrity from them. Apparently I was wrong.