At Big Journalism, Ron Futrell explores the epic clusterfark that is the above headline:
The New York Knicks put together an amazing winning streak with Taiwanese basketball sensation Jeremy Lin when they finally lost a game last week. The ESPN headline; ”Chink in the Armor” (see screen shot above).
AdvertisementThe headline was up on the ESPN mobile website for 35 minutes and actually, it was the second time the network used that phrase with Lin. One of their sports anchors unbelievably used that identical phrase.
ESPN said it is, “conducting a complete review of our cross-platform editorial procedures and are determining appropriate disciplinary action to ensure this does not happen again. We regret and apologize for this mistake.”
ESPN has fired the person responsible for the racial slur on its mobile ap and suspended the news anchor for 30 days and the pledged to “be better in the future.”
Never forget, ESPN is the network that takes a holier-than-thou approach to race and sports. They are the arbiters of right and wrong and they will be the first to try to destroy anybody who gets close to saying or doing something they find politically incorrect. Just ask Rush Limbaugh. He was forced to resign from ESPN when he went after the Philadelphia media for their coverage of Donovan McNabb. ESPN thought what he said was politically incorrect and he was gone. The words “controversial” and “racially insensitive” were used in regards to Limbaugh’s criticism of the Philadelphia media. When you set that bar at that level, you’d better be able to live up to it yourself.
Live TV can be tough and mistakes can be made, I’ve seen plenty of firings in a heartbeat over statements much less egregious. I’m proud that I’ve done 30 years live TV and radio without having anything like this ever happen, so I know first-hand the challenges of putting out a lot of live product in a hurry where you are the only filter. I had zero tolerance with myself and I met that standard.
How about the rest of the Activist Old Media? How will they react to this racial slur? Certainly, coverage would be extensive were ESPN not “one of their own.” ESPN is owned by ABC and I’ll betcha tickets to the next Knicks game that the “Mother Ship” won’t be covering this story.
Based on how NBC’s Tom Brokaw and the late Peter Jennings of ABC circled the wagons in defense of Dan Rather in the fall of 2004, that seems like an awfully safe bet.
Update: Live by identity politics, die by them as well: “Suspended ESPN Anchor [Max Bretos]: Hey, My Wife is Asian, So What’s the Big Deal About the Jeremy Lin ‘Chink’ Gag?”
More: “Jeremy Lin headline slur was ‘honest mistake,’ fired ESPN editor Anthony Federico claims.”
Jeremy is an American , born in L.A.
Palo Alto, actually (sports.yahoo.com/nba/players/4795) — but point taken, he’s not “Taiwanese” as stated.
Born in L.A., raised in the bay area.
I believe Anthony Federico intended no harm and no slur. The irony is that you have to be viewing things racially to detect the slur. Anthony wasn’t immersed enough in the racial stereotypes to think his statement was a problem.
Take it from someone who knows several folks at “the Worldwide Leader” (as even employees refer to it, tongue-in-cheek) and works in their industry: this was no “honest mistake”. They knew *exactly* what they were doing with this headline: when it would be posted (and pulled), what the likely reaction would be, the attendant publicity, etc. Remember this was the gang that employed Keith Olbermann for years and takes still takes huge pride in its jokey, smug on-air talent and ironic advertising (“This is SportsCenter”). I’m sure someone just thought this would be a real howler.
It’s a flat-out ugly way to cash in on Mr. Lin’s success. Any nasty fallout is richly deserved.
So when do the college administrators that admissions quota discriminate against Asian students get fired? Or Reverend “Korean grocer boycott” Sharpton get fired from his MSNBC gig?
Words will get you fired. Actual overt racist actions, it would appear, don’t.
It disturbs me to watch some on the right joining our political and ideological opponents in their corrupt tactics, enforcing their framing, supporting their poisonous narrative, and repeating their propaganda .
If ESPN thought they could get away with it, they’d do a “This Is SportCenter” commercial with Lin dressed up as a knight dribbling through the office in Bristol. The problem for them was they didn’t have their PC radar up because there have been so few Asian-American star athletes in the major U.S. pro sports they didn’t see a need to keep the behind-the-scenes joking off the air or off the website.
– just let the players play the game.