I think you're giving North Americans--of which I am one--too much credit. It's no coincidence that the decline of figure skating happened right around Michelle Kwan's retirement. Japan seems to love figure skating just fine. Are Japanese people sheep who are fine with corruption, while North Americans are too honourable for that? More likely--though I can't say with any certainty--it's because Japan has stars while NA doesn't right now. (Okay, Patrick Chan, but he's become such a bastion of controversy due to how he won his titles. Now that's an area for which I can blame the current scoring system).What I wrote was that the North American audience has abandoned the sport and will continue to do so until ISU cleans up its act and the reputation of the sport is raised.
I don't object to Hersh's article because I'm an apologist. I object because it's a shoddy piece of journalism that doesn't offer constructive arguments. I agree with many of his statements. Doesn't mean he's doing a good job at his journalism post. Should a professor hand a student A+ for a three-word paper that says "Racism is bad"? Is this paper going to change the world in a positive way?