Couch: Scottie Pippen Is Latest High-Profile Sports Figure To Put The 'Me' In Media

Years later, after he had retired from Gotham and moved to Florida, Robin realized that Batman had taken all the credit all along and never treated him like an equal. Sidekick? How insulting! So it was time for one thing:

A tell-all.

That’s where we are now with Scottie Pippen, who said on Twitter that he’s writing the book Unguarded to straighten the record. You’d think he’d have gotten the hint when they built a statue of Michael Jordan outside of the United Center, but not one of Pippen. Maybe he thought his was still coming? But it took until he saw “The Last Dance’’ that it finally hit Pippen: 

The documentary was giving Jordan all of the credit for the Chicago Bulls dynasty. 

And as preposterous as that complaint sounds, it does make me smile for one reason alone: It’s not my fault. It’s not the media’s fault. The mainstream media can just sit back and enjoy this one, while a story-teller is called out for not telling the story in the exact way the subject wanted it told.

In this case, Michael Jordan is the lamestream media, the bad guy, the biased jerk, the ass. Ha!

The thing is, Jordan’s documentary didn’t just accidentally give Jordan all the credit. That’s because it wasn’t actually a documentary at all. Jordan’s production company put it out. Jordan had complete veto power on anything said about him, or about anything at all. So he documented his greatness, took another petty jab at the people who bugged him along the way, didn’t get in the side of the story of teammates who didn’t push his image-enhancement-a-mentary.

It is not a documentary if the subject of the documentary is the one putting it out. It’s a marketing piece, an image-polisher. That’s not to put down “The Last Dance.’’ I loved it. But I knew what I was watching, too. It wasn’t an unbiased look at something.

This is a strong new wave that Jordan didn’t start. Athletes don’t want pesky reporters telling the truth about them anymore or asking them tough questions. Instead they want to be in complete control to fictionalize their image through Twitter, Instagram or other social media. Or if you’re big enough:

A documentary. Sorry, I meant “documentary.’’

That’s what we saw last week at the French Open, when Naomi Osaka decided she simply wasn’t going to answer media questions anymore because she didn’t want to. She talked about reporters’ questions being tough on athletes’ mental health, but that wasn’t really what that was about.

It was about trying to bypass the media. It was a good time for a test case, too, as the media are particularly weak now. That’s not to say the media haven’t earned their weakness.

But when Osaka boycotted the press, all other sports and athletes were watching closely. She is the biggest name in women’s sports in the world now, with $50 million a year in endorsements. That was a power play.

And the French Open fined her and the tennis majors got together and said if she keeps it up, she could be kicked out of this major and others. And then Osaka dropped out of the tournament.

Meanwhile, media access to athletes in all sports was limited during the pandemic, and now with things opening up again, the media are looking to get their old access back. It’s safe to talk to an athlete face-to-face now.  

True, but the leagues are in more control when things are on Zoom. For all the sports media’s shortcomings -- and there are plenty -- at least they’re trying to give an inside look at things. Believe it or not, most of them are trying to be objective.

Guess how many of these fake documentaries are aiming for that.

Answer: zero.

And really, why do we need the press at sporting events anyway? Well, the tennis majors just like having their events promoted by international media. Women’s golf is so low on media attention that efforts have been started recently to actually help cover the costs of media willing to come cover them.

The publisher of Pippen’s book says that the Bulls wouldn’t have won six titles without him, that Jordan wouldn’t be Jordan and that Pippen was the real leader of the team. I don’t know about that: Wasn’t Robin always sitting shotgun in the Batmobile while Batman was driving?

“Pippen details,’’ the book promotion says, “how he cringed at being labeled Jordan’s sidekick, and discusses how he could have (and should have) received more respect from the Bulls’ management and the media.’’

Well, “sidekick’’ is better than “supporting cast,’’ which is how Jordan described the rest of the team.

But let’s not lose focus here. In this case, Jordan IS the media. And Derek Jeter is going to be the media in the new docuseries about him. In November, we’ll get “Man in the Arena: Tom Brady.’’ Brady will have control. 

So I guess we’ll just assume that he’ll give a fair look at his divorce with Bill Belichick? Maybe we’ll just wait for a Belichick documentary to hear that truth.

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