Media Hangover

Bad-boy behavior pays off, big time.

Skiing star Bode Miller goes on "60 Minutes," shoots off his mouth about getting drunk before a big competition, rips the CBS program for airing his remarks, holds a news conference to apologize and winds up on the cover of Time and Newsweek. Not exactly a downhill trajectory.

Journalists can't resist a troublemaking athlete who produces a blizzard of controversy instead of the usual sports cliches. And in the media world, doing bad things only fuels your celebrity, as Martha Stewart's post-jail television and radio gigs make clear.

"Skiing's Wild Child," declared Time. "Fast, loose and seemingly out of control," with "a smirking disrespect for the media," gushed Newsweek. In the run-up to the Olympics, it was Miller Time.

The storm began days before the Jan. 8 edition of "60 Minutes," with a CBS press release headlined "Bode Miller on Skiing Drunk." Miller told Bob Simon about his Saturday night drinking, saying: "There's been times when I've been in really tough shape at the top of the course" and that it's hard to ski "when you're wasted." It was presented as a light moment, but there was no missing the potential for a media avalanche.

While some sportswriters dismissed this as less than shocking, Ron Judd wrote in the Seattle Times: "Miller's confession to skiing drunk was highly uncouth, and it makes you want to slap the guy upside the head." Ray Grass wondered in Salt Lake City's Deseret Morning News: "Tell me, please, why anyone would go before millions of viewers and brag about being 'wasted' in the starting gate?"

Maybe because all publicity is good publicity?

Miller's agent, Lowell Taub, complained about an "out-of-context and salacious headline involving drunkenness." Miller, in his Denver Post blog, called "60 Minutes" "probably the most reputable and prestigious news program in the U.S., and I told them the story to test their integrity. . . . If they were interested in doing the right thing, or doing what they should be doing in terms of painting a role model for kids, they would have left that stuff out."

Say wha' ? Miller says on camera that he skis impaired to see whether television's oldest newsmagazine would protect him by cutting it out?

In any event, the head of U.S. skiing was not amused, calling Miller's comments "unacceptable" and "irresponsible." Under pressure, Miller summoned journalists in Switzerland and apologized to his friends, family and supporters.

"I don't need the media," Miller boasted to Newsweek, but he's too smart to believe that he could have amassed millions of dollars without all the journalistic adulation.

There was a time when an athlete's reputation might have been marred by such frank talk about drinking and hangovers, but that now seems very 20th century. Miller already has a Sirius satellite radio show and the kind of swaggering image that money can't buy. If he misbehaves at the Olympics, he'll probably get his own cable show.