Every day for the last week I’ve expected to read or hear that Fox Sports has fired or suspended Jason Whitlock for the outrageous Twitter comment he made about women and New York Knicks’ sensation Jeremy Lin.
I don’t know how he did it, but with one little tweet he managed to paint women as sexual trophies to be used and abused, and he managed to stereotype Asian men as having…well, as former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner might have put it, inadequate “packages.”
Here’s what Whitlock tweeted the night of Feb. 10, after Lin scored a career-high 38 points as the Knicks beat the Los Angeles Lakers 92-85.
“Some lucky lady in NYC is gonna feel a couple inches of pain tonight.”
That brought this reaction from the Asian American Journalists Association:
“Outrage doesn’t begin to describe the reaction…to your unnecessary and demeaning tweet…Let’s not pretend we don’t know to what you were referring. The attempt at humor – and we hope that is all it was – fell flat. It also exposed how some media companies fail to adequately monitor the antics of their high-profile representatives. Standards need to be applied – by you and by Fox Sports.”
Whitlock/Lin
Whitlock, who flamed out at The Star in August 2010, later apologized, saying in part:
“I…gave in to another part of my personality—my immature, sophomoric, comedic nature. It’s been with me since birth, a gift from my mother and honed as a child listening to my godmother’s Richard Pryor albums. I still want to be a standup comedian.”
So, it was the fault of his mother and godmother? I guess his godmother should be flogged for leaving those Richard Pryor albums lying around like loaded handguns.
Meanwhile, an ESPN editor got fired for using an ethnic slur in a headline on ESPN.com’s mobile Web site, and an ESPN anchor was suspended for 30 days for using the same phrase during an interview about Lin with a former NBA player.
The headline posted by Anthony Federico of ESPN said, “Chink in the Armor: Jeremy Lin’s 9 Turnovers Cost Knicks in Streak-stopping Loss to Hornets.”
Federico, who deserved to be fired, apologized and in an interview with the New York Daily News said: “This had nothing to do with me being cute or funny. I’m so sorry that I offended people. I’m so sorry if I offended Jeremy.”
The suspended anchor man, Max Bretos, also apologized unequivocally, saying in a tweet, “My wife is Asian, would never intentionally say anything to disrespect her and that community.”
There you have the story, so far, of how two networks handled the same type of problem. ESPN fired one person and suspended another, while Fox Sports has remained largely silent on the matter of Whitlock’s double slur and his subsequent lame attempt to dismiss the ethnic element of it as a bad joke.
A week before Whitlock fired off his tweet, CNN suspended political analyst Roland Martin for tweets he posted during the Super Bowl.
Martin caused an uproar, particularly among gay rights groups, by tweeting that people should “smack the ish” out of any male fans of an underwear ad starring David Beckham.
He also made fun of a New England Patriots player who arrived wearing a pink jumpsuit. “He needs a visit from #teamwhipdatass,” Martin wrote.
As the Asian American Journalists Association said, “Standards need to be applied.”
I’m waiting for Fox to join ESPN and CNN in applying high standards to a sports writer who seems destined to be immature and sophomoric for life.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
If your former employer had any integrity Jason would have been fired after the Drew Bledsoe is gay incident. Jason is a racist. His intent with the tweet was not to be funny or entertaining. There are numerous ways he could have done that, maybe even including some self deprecating humor to boot. He wanted to be insulting. How dare an Asian man come into the NBA, the domain of the black athlete, and be considered an equal.
Irony in this is that for years, if not decades,Toyota made it damn near impossible for Americans of African lineage to own a dealership or even get hired to any meaningful positions in the company due to a perception that blacks were inferior.
I suspect that retaliation is already taking place at a few Oriental restaurants as some blacks will get a nice helping of human or animal feces and semen added to their Kung Pao Surprise. Wu Tang indeed!
Jason managed to make the shit list of David Carr, New York Times media columnist. In today’s column, Carr cited Whitlock’s — and the other guys’ gaffes — and said there was only one thing not to like about the feel-good Lin story:
“What’s not to like is that part where some doofus is asleep at the switch and a wonderful yarn turns ugly.”
Jim – a particularly timely and appropriate blog on your part given the fact that Jason Whitlock used to work for The Star, of course, and given the fact that the new publisher of same is of Asian heritage, at least in part. The Whitlock incident, by the way, was discussed at the “round table” the other day. Fox already has a reputation for being less than “fair and balanced,” so this only enhances that image in the eyes of many. Fox has some serious house-cleaning to do as far as I’m concerned. To Jason I would say, using the old line, “10,000 comedians out of work and you think you’re funny.” It’s time to grow up! Of course, Fox, ESPN, CNN, etc. are all private entities and can discipline their employees as they best see fit. But these same sort of racist remarks and/or ethnic slurs are being made by Kansas politicians and the only recourse the electorate has is to wait until the next election and hope for a better outcome at the polls. These folks need to be placed on 30-day suspensions (if not longer) immediately.
But Jason got mentioned on Saturday Night Live, so I’m sure he is reveling in his attention. Is, was and always has been a fraud.
ESPN may have gone overboard with the headline writer. In addition to the comments you reference, he also pointed out many times when he used the same phrase in other contexts and claimed that no pun was intended, it was just perceived differently given that on this occasion it was about Lin.
The Whitlock quotes however, are not accidental. they are deliberately made to be humorous using a standard for humor that hasn’t existed in decades. I suspect that because many black comedians feel free to use within race ethnic slurs that there is less of a sense of political correctness in general when it comes to using slurs of either race, gender, or sexual orientation. And so, since black people can never be racists, Whitlock is getting a pass.
What I find interesting is that I just tried to find the complete quote from the guy ESPN fired so I could quote it here and after looking through multiple sources failed to find it. That to me is just as offensive as what he’s accused of saying.
Everyone is lynching this guy, but no one is giving his side of the story including his comment that he too is apparently an evangelical Christian (like Lin). How is that journalistically acceptable? It’s not like he’s trying to defend making ethnic slurs, he’s giving out an easily verifiable explanation as to why that particular phrased was used in an apparently valid defense of his own reputation.
If his explanation is indeed verified, how fair is it to deprive a man of his livelihood when an honest mistake was made. Indeed, I’m reminded of a bureaucrat in DC who was fired for using the word niggardly and people ignorant of the word’s actual meaning demanded his head even after it was explained. The man was fired not because of what he said, but because of the ignorance of those who misunderstood him.
I’m sorry, but I value my first amendment rights too highly to turn them over to people who refuse to print both sides of a story, or those who decide they wish to misinterpret my comments owing to their own ignorance. In the case of the editor, not only did ESPN go way too far overboard, but a media lynch mob that only took the time to convey one side of the story and only what they wanted to hear of the editor’s explanation should get a huge black eye for their Orwellian mentality.
And no, black eye is not a racial pun.
John — The guy who got fired was the editor I mentioned, Anthony Federico, who wrote and posted this headline on the ESPN.com. mobile site: “Chink in the Armor: Jeremy Lin’s 9 Turnovers Cost Knicks in Streak-stopping Loss to Hornets.”
The anchor man who got suspended, Max Bretos, used the same term while interviewing Walt Frazier, a former Knicks great.
From what I’ve read, I believe that when Bretos used the phrase, he was not saying it as a pun or joke; I think there’s a good chance he meant it in the traditional, non-racial sense and that it just popped into his mind and out of his mouth. Like he said, his wife is Asian, and they have a son who has distinctly Asian features. He is beating himself up and ruing the loss of his career.
Federico, on the other hand, posted the story with the offending headline about 2:30 in the morning and it stayed up for about 35 minutes before another editor killed it. I think Federico intended it as an ethnic slur, even though he is insisting it was an honest mistake. He certainly would have put some thought into that headline before posting it, unless, as David Carr suggested, he was just “some doofus…asleep at the switch.”
…Now, I understand, the Knicks’ radio broadcaster, Spero Dedes, also used the “chink in the armor” phrase last Friday after the Knicks lost to the New Orleans Hornets.
A Web site called Pop2it reported today that Dedes said on the air, “For the first time in what has been a remarkable two-week run, Jeremy Lin shows a chink in the armor. The Knicks’ seven-game winning streak ends against the Hornets as they fall for the first time since February the 3rd.”
The site went on to say, “Calls to the Knicks inquiring about any disciplinary plans for Dedes were not returned.”
I think it’s safe to say we won’t be hearing the phrase “chink in the armor” any time soon from any broadcaster.
Found it in the NY Daily News:
The ESPN editor fired Sunday for using “chink in the armor” in a headline about Knicks phenom Jeremy Lin said the racial slur never crossed his mind – and he was devastated when he realized his mistake.
“This had nothing to do with me being cute or punny,” Anthony Federico told the Daily News.
“I’m so sorry that I offended people. I’m so sorry if I offended Jeremy.”
Federico, 28, said he understands why he was axed. “ESPN did what they had to do,” he said.
He said he has used the phrase “at least 100 times” in headlines over the years and thought nothing of it when he slapped it on the Lin story.
Federico called Lin one of his heroes – not just because he’s a big Knicks fan, but because he feels a kinship with a fellow “outspoken Christian.”
“My faith is my life,” he said. “I’d love to tell Jeremy what happened and explain that this was an honest mistake.”
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/knicks/jeremy-lin-slur-honest-mistake-fired-espn-editor-anthony-federico-claims-article-1.1025566#ixzz1mzN5tPii
But why aren’t we seeing this much information in the rest of the reports that are doing a hatchet job on him? Hell, The Star doesn’t even let you know what he said, just that he did something horrible. This is why political correctness sucks. It removes rational thought from the process, kills dialog and creates a lynch mob mentality.
It’s possible that Federico made an honest mistake, but I’m just skeptical because, unlike the announcer, he had the benefit of time to look over what he was posting before doing so.
…By the way, I misquoted Federico. I’ve got him saying, “This had nothing to do with me being cute or funny,” when, as you say, John, Federico said, “This had nothing to do with me being cute or punny.”
(Honest mistake on my part, readers, and I’m going to leave it as is to show my ignorance and extreme humility.)
Fitz, posted the second post before I saw your response. Check the link and see what you think.
Good story Jim, and a nice word choice with “packages.” I imagine that Jason kept the editors at The Star busy editing his columns. For someone prone to mouth off without stopping to think what they are saying, Twitter is a nightmare. He needs to get off Twitter or hire an editor for his tweets.
That’s a good idea, Kate — him hiring an editor…He put out the word after he left The Star, where he had been making about $100,000 a year, that he had received a $2 million contract with Fox Sports. That number got picked up in various places, including The New York Times, but no reporters attempted to verify it, to the best of my knowledge, and Fox Sports, of course, had no reason to confirm or deny…Anyway, if he did get a $2 million contract (I think it’s probably closer to $200,000), he can afford to hire a persona and up-close editor. And I think he should hire an Asian woman to make amends for his double slur.
Self appointed “Thought Police” arbitrarily breaking would be racist butterflies on the wheel, based on a subjective eisegesis is just more lubricant for the Politically Correct Tyranny of the Minority rules that we Americans languish under every second of every day.
Not so long ago, conversations concerning “Free Speeech” and the 1st Amendment were centered around an imaginary “Fire in a theater.”
Now the heat from conceptual fires in the minds of liberal facists must be constantly decoded not only by we swine in the streets, but, successful 2nd tier 4th estate suck-ups who have kept their jobs not with scathing idictments and starteling expose’s (New daily Affirmative Action qualifiers indicating who is afflicted and who needs comfort would bring some much appreciated clarification and pearls for we swine.) ,but with the talent to presciently parse imaginary infractions in the Human Resource Handbooks of major media affiliates.
Every day, Americans lose their jobs, freedom and sometimes life for saying the wrong thing, in the wrong company at the wrong time.
The definition of the wrong thing, wrong company and wrong time seems exponentially greater with each passing day.
Like most poetry, some comments are simply inscrutable.
I wouldn’t have seen it, if I hadn’t believed it.
Marshall McLuhan
It’s a little late now, but The Star could have at least mentioned the offending headline in its online coverage of the wide world of sports if space was an issue in print, although the sports people seem to pretty much get what they want in terms of space these days. It’s just a matter of time before something like this happens at The Star given the tendency of late for the sports headline writers to rely a lot on word play in an attempt to amuse their readers. Remember the headline following a victorious Royals game last year or the year before when rough weather either interrupted or shortened the contest (I can’t remember which)? – “Storm Troopers”. Of course, that went right over the heads of the 20 somethings and 30 somethings, but anyone “of a certain age” or who regularly reads history books instead of Harry Potter immediately made the connection. Who was asleep at the switch there? In this new age of P.C., etc., it’s probably better to error on the side of caution when in doubt about something.
Like I’ve said in this space before, the main reason that reporting and editing are such difficult jobs is that both require total vigilance. This story is an example of how every sentence and every word is important. One “chink” gone wrong and people are fired and suspended…As we all know, complete vigilance is hard to deliver. I’ve only known a handful of reporters and editors who came close…and I wasn’t one of them.
You’re perhaps being a little too hard on yourself, Jim. Dad’s no longer around to speak well of your work at The Star, which I’m confident he would, and I know Laura has expressed the view on at least one occasion that the paper would benefit greatly from your presence in the News Room even today.
But you make an excellent point, of course. There is the expression “observe and report.” Dad referred to himself and his colleagues as being “observers,” a somewhat unique role that essentially separated them from the rest of society, but there comes a time when the reporting must occur, and here the “observers” need to be ever so careful in every phase of this process. In our 24/7 news cycle, unfortunately, the general tendency of the media is to “glance and shoot” because being first with the “news” (which often really isn’t news) is seen as the quickest path to relevancy. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Rick speaks of his father, Dick Nichols, a legendary copy editor at The Star, who died last year. Yes, the reporters observe and report, and the copy editors mostly observe. They observe with magnifying glasses, figuratively speaking, and they have to be every bit as vigilant as the reporters and line editors. For decades we had fantastic copy desks at The Times and The Star, and they saved me from so many errors…Of course, I still managed to make quite a few that got through the safety net. I was always grateful, though, for the ones they caught.
How many errors do we see day in and day out from The Star owing to the fact that they got rid of so many copy editors? And of those who remain, how many are so overworked that they too could easily insert what at the time seems to be a harmless phrase, but has an extraordinary consequence given the context of the moment?
Getting more back to the issue at hand, I think we all remember The Star’s decision to let Jason try his hand at a regular column in which all topics were pretty much fair game. Now that was a train wreck waiting to happen! He certainly wasn’t an unknown quantity going into that experiment, nor was he a complete unknown when Fox hired him to do whatever it is he is supposed to be doing for them. But are they (Fox) really all that concerned about their image? Apparently not. Sort of like the Republicans, who let an avowed white supremacist have a seat on the panel at a recent C-PAC function. Anything to boost the ratings. Anything to make a buck.
Well, now that we’re entered into the twilight zone. I know the column you refer to, Rick, and speaking of unethical conduct, Mary Sanchez tried to hold out old loony Lenny as being two sources, since she quotes him and then sources the organization he’s the president of.
In addition, the person she alleges made the goofy quotes isn’t the person who was on the panel. At no time did she offer anything but guilt by (distant) association as evidence. Just another of Mary’s daily hates.
Also, i got a giggle out of her reference to the eugenics movement since The Star has been an outright whore for Planned Parenthood whose co-founder was an outright racist eugenicist (something that’s not in the distant past since they still give out an “award” that bears her name, ironically to The Star). So if you want to talk racists here by Mary’s standards, let’s also include Planned Parenthood and their genocidal assault on people of color, and The Star for not only supporting PP’s racist goals, but for actually accepting an”award” named for a racist eugenicist.
Mary Sanchez sure catches a lot of shit on local blogs. TonyKC is downright hostile and vicious toward her; that I don’t understand.
She’s actually quite bright. I saw her defending that idiot Hendricks on O’Reilly and was duly impressed with how well she did. That’s just not an easy task and she really did well. Usually she writes pretty solid stuff, but this particular column was weak for the reasons i listed above. Lenny seems to be a Star favorite and that probably had a lot to do with it. One wonders whether it might have been an assigned task.
tkc has a perpetual mad-on toward local msm; she feels she ‘deserves’ more respect. when she doesn’t get it she holds her breath, turns blue…and then screams louder.
worse tkc seems to feel she is the only arbiter of what is or isn’t a ‘good’ latino –sanchez doesn’t cut it for him.
this is amusing/horrifying to watch. tkc has so alienated working journos that would once share a public dais with her, that now no one (possibly save Helling) wants to be associated with her: remember that bubble in the bong water over her scheduled inclusion on a kcptv wir show and how everyone (possibly save Helling) refused to go on with her?
witnessing the spectacle somewhat askance, and definitely from afar, this plays out like a particularly cringe worthy telenovela…with no end in sight.
it is, however, hard to look away: where will the little idiot slice herself next?
I think I just got a new breath of respect for Helling while remembering why it is I never watch either kcpt, or wir. This narrow-minded Stalinist mentality of turning people into non-humans is exactly why people detest the establishment media.
I disagree with Tony often, but I’ve found him to be open-minded (something you point out the local establishment isn’t) and he spends a lot of time trying to make up the massive holes in the local establishment’s coverage, doing so pretty much for free.
Be thankful for the people who disagree with you. They’re the only thing standing in the way of you becoming a totalitarian prick, because the bottom line is that we all have the potential to be fascist pigs.
PS, I think Nick Haines does a fantastic job of trying to put on a good program in the face of working in a very authoritarian environment, made even worse by the nature of many of those who are major donors to the station.