Tiger Woods profits off his personal endorsements, and his many, million-dollar sponsorships are largely based on his upstanding and public persona.

His financial success is not only built on consistency, discipline and talent on the green, but his All-American marketability and corporate endorsements also fill his accounts with greenbacks.

The car crash, domestic disturbance and 911 call are leading a different – and digital – discussion around journalism ideology and ethics, due to a video by Next Media.

The Taiwan- and Hong Kong-based organization  often creates animated clips that re-enact, or in Tiger’s case re-imagine, news events.

As two Canadian media experts tell the Globe and Mail, this video may push storytelling and news broadcasting in new directions.

But arguable it’s not journalism as it’s not factual.

The conjecture, interesting and gossip-worthy as it may be, is speculative. If done correctly, the technique has value and potential, but as media ethicist Larry Cornies said about Next Media’s so-called reenactment:

I was kind of horrified. It’s really no better than guesswork. It was fill-in-the-blanks. That’s not how we do journalism. Reenactments can be really quite useful, if they’re backed up with good facts.

Toronto Sun entertainment columnist, Steve Tilley laughed at the CGI content and seems to lament that Canadian outlets don’t indulge in similar feats of imagination:

This Taiwanese newscast about Tiger Woods crashing his SUV outside his Florida home has lit up the Internet, and with good reason: it’s absolutely hysterical. You might not be able to understand what’s being said, but that’s OK … once the CGI recreation of Tiger’s wife slapping him and chasing him with a golf club begins, it won’t matter. How come we never see this kind stuff on Canadian newscasts? Other than, you know, it completely violates a whole whack of journalistic principles. Not to mention general good taste.

Tilley also makes an important observation about Next Media and its parent company, Apple Daily:

Taiwan’s Apple Daily, the news organization behind the recreation, was recently slapped with a $15,500 US government fine for creating similar computer animated recreations of robberies, rapes and child abuse. Government officials warned them to start using restraint, but apparently — and luckily for us — that doesn’t include facts-optional stories about philandering American athletes being chased by their wives.

No Canadian news organization is passing this “facts-optional” video off as news. Rather, the novelty and hilarity lies in the online reception to Tiger’s unravelling control over his image, helped in no small part by Next Media’s animation. Canadian news agencies, on the other hand, can revel in the potential for digital and fact-based news narrative.