Tiger Woods said sorry. John Terry said sorry. Even ­Vernon Kay said sorry. It's a sorry state of affairs. If you were to rank the three in terms of transgression, that's probably the order they'd fall in: Woods first, then Terry, and finally ­Kay (pictured), who didn't even cheat, or at least not in our physical realm. Texting flirty messages? Maybe unwise when you're otherwise engaged in a relationship, but at the very worst it's a Matrix shag. I'm not exactly what you'd call a fan of Kay's presentational style, but I don't derive any pleasure from watching him squirm and apologise to a pointing, cackling nation.

When did public displays of contrition become the norm? More to the point, who actually appreciates them? Sitting through any public apology is mortifying. It just feels wrong. And ­unless the poor sod in ­question is ­saying sorry for something as ­momentous as a war crime, it's ­entirely unnecessary. The public don't need to hear it, because the public isn't as ­psychotically, self-regardingly deranged as the press. Consequently, these apologies are aimed not at the public, not at the fans or the ­listeners, but the press. The press demands apologies on its own behalf, regardless of the will of the people. And it does this because it is insane, truly Caligula-level insane.

When it comes to the three scandals in question, the press has been ­perpetually and erroneously outraged on behalf of the public. During the Terry debacle, I was working on a TV show that required me to watch hours of rolling news coverage, like a lab rat with its eyes glued open. TV news vox pops are about as far from a scientific survey as it's possible to get without literally gluing a scientific survey to a rock, blasting it into deep space and bicycling like billyo in the opposite direction, but still: not one member of the public, with a microphone shoved in front of their face, managed to work up even 1% of the indignant fury of some media pundits. For the first ­couple of days, they couldn't find ­anyone who wouldn't simply shrug and say, "So what? It's his private life." After a week's worth of media sabre-rattling and interminable witless debate over the morals of a man who kicks a ball around for a living, they managed to uncover a few – a few – pedestrians who were ­grudgingly ­prepared to admit that maybe he should step down, considering his ­position as a role model to kids.

But the whole role-model-to-kids ­argument was a bogus mantra in the first instance. For one thing, kids don't care about or even comprehend their idols' sex lives, and for another, if you're so worried about the havoc ­Terry's shenanigans could wreak on impressionable minds, stop dredging up the details and printing them in simplified prose a child could ­understand, accompanied by massive photographs of his alleged ­mistress in her underwear. And besides, even if Terry had been caught ­having sex with a Cabbage Patch Doll in the window of Hamleys, he'd still be a better role model than any tabloid newspaper. A child who idolised the tabloids would grow up to be a ­sanctimonious, flip-flopping, phone-tapping Peeping Tom who thinks puns are hilarious and spends half its life desperately ­rooting through bins for a ­living. If I had a child like that, I'd divorce it. Or kill it. Whichever proved cheapest.

Of course, the press has to feign outrage on behalf of the public because that's ­virtually the only thing that lends the public-interest argument much weight when you're dealing with ethical transgressions in the private lives of sportsmen. It's interesting that when the News of the World lawyer (the cheerfully named Mr Crone) spoke to ITN about the ­lifting of Terry's super-injunction, he said that too often the public's right to know is overlooked in ­favour of "wealthy and pampered" ­celebrities and footballers. That's true, of course, but the words "wealthy" and "pampered" seemed to be ­delivered with particular emphasis, as though this was a noble victory for the ­downtrodden little guy, rather than an immense corporation that makes a fortune from prying into the sex lives of hapless soap stars and ­clueless ball-wallopers. It would've been refreshing if he'd said: "This is an important victory for freedom of the press – but never mind that: wahey! Filth galore!" And then rolled his eyes and rubbed his belly and performed a cartoon backflip. But no. He didn't.

Instead, Terry paid the price for that daft super-injunction: he was publicly tarred and feathered. As was Woods. As was Kay. In the west, adultery isn't ­punishable by ­stoning. Instead, if you're famous (and even if you've only committed virtual adultery by text) it's punishable by kicking. Step out of line and the press will encircle and kick you. And kick you and kick you and kick you until you beg for forgiveness. At which point, if you're lucky, they'll chortle and sneer and move on. They must be ­frightfully proud.