REPORT: ESPN SUSPENDED LINDA COHN, LET JEMELE HILL SLIDE.
Last night Outkick broke the news that Linda Cohn, one of the most respected women to ever work at ESPN and the person who has hosted more SportsCenters over the past 25 years than any other current employee, was called and told by ESPN president John Skipper not to come to work after she went on the radio in New York City this past April and said as follows:
“They definitely overpaid for many of these products, whether it’s the NBA or starting up networks like the Pac-12 Network and SEC Network,” she said on WABC’s “Bernie and Sid Show.” “It’s well documented … They [also] did not see that they would lose all these subscribers [to competitors like Netflix.]”
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According to multiple sources inside ESPN — Cohn declined comment when reached by Outkick — ESPN president John Skipper called Cohn and screamed at her for having the gall to share her opinion in public and told her to stay at home instead of coming to work that weekend. Why was Cohn to stay at home? So, according to an irate John Skipper, she could have time to think about what she had said.
When Outkick reached out to ESPN seeking comment on the Cohn story, ESPN’s PR staff refused to explain anything about the decision, responding via email: “The last time we responded with an explanation, you called us liars.”
Word of Linda Cohn’s suspension raced through ESPN’s corridors with many employees furious over Skipper’s treatment of the longtime legend at the network. Especially when so many at ESPN disagreed with the direction of the network in general and felt compelled to keep their mouths shut lest they also say something that angered their bosses.
Time after time and employee after employee has reached out to Outkick to express total befuddlement with John Skipper’s incompetence.
“The guy running our company,” said one prominent employee who requested anonymity, “is not good at his job. When is he going to fire himself instead of firing everyone else?”
That last paragraph is an evergreen quote, uttered by the remaining sane employees whenever a CEO decides that being a platform for SJWs is more important than his core business.
Related: That time back in 2008 when Jemele Hill compared Celtics fans to Hitler.
UPDATE: “Clay Travis [author of the above-linked Outkick the Coverage blog post] pointed out on Tucker Carlson last night that Bob Iger, CEO of Disney (ESPN’s parent company) follows only 59 people total on Twitter, and one of them is Jamele Hill.”