What Can and Can’t Be Said at ESPN

By
HG
– February 26, 2010

Tony Kornheiser’s suspension by ESPN for comments he made about Hannah Storm (and Chris Berman) give cause for us to look at the network’s suspension policy. I can’t follow their logic. Cussing on the air is bad sometimes, and ripping people via Twitter will get your tweets suspended for a couple of weeks. Referencing Hitler gets you paddled, making a racial Freudian slip with Martin Luther King’s name on Martin Luther King Day garners an aw shucks apology. Look at the following examples and see if you can make sense of ESPN’s disciplinary policies.

Acceptable Comments For ESPN Employees
Mike Greenberg Martin Luther Coon Comment:

Barry Melrose Chicken Shi(t)p Comment:

Scott Van Pelt “Fuck I Gotta” Comment:

Comments That Will Result in Suspension for ESPN Employees
Tony Kornheiser’s Hannah Storm and Chris Berman Comments:

“Hannah Storm in a horrifying, horrifying outfit today. She’s got on red go-go boots and a catholic school plaid skirt … way too short for somebody in her 40s or maybe early 50s by now.” “She’s got on her typically very, very tight shirt. She looks like she has sausage casing wrapping around her upper body … I know she’s very good, and I’m not supposed to be critical of ESPN people, so I won’t … but Hannah Storm … come on now! Stop! What are you doing? … She’s what I would call a Holden Caulfield fantasy at this point.”

“I know I’m not supposed to be critical of ESPN people, like if I point out that people say that they lost 50 or 60 pounds have actually gained all the weight back…” (Co-host interrupts: “And then some. Gained the weight back, back, back, back.”)

Dana Jacobson’s Mike and Mike Roast Comments:

Fuck Notre Dame, Fuck Touchdown Jesus, Fuck Jesus

Jemele Hill “Rooting for the Celtics is like..” Comments in a Column for ESPN.com:

“Rooting for the Celtics is like saying Hitler was a victim. It’s like hoping Gorbachev would get to the blinking red button before Reagan.”

Bill Simmons Twitter Rip of WEEI:

Bob Griese Juan Pablo Montoya Taco Comment:

Comments That Will Get You Fired From ESPN
Danyelle Sargent “What the fuck” moment on ESPNEWS:

Rush Limbaugh’s Donovan McNabb comment (The audio quality is horrible.):

Jason Whitlock’s comments on Mike Lupica and Scoop Jackson from The Big Lead interview:

Lupica is an insecure, mean-spirited busybody. He’s upset because I put a clown suit on him on that show and in a follow-up column I wrote for ESPN. His little disingenuous overreaction to an opinion I’d stated previously on the show was staged to try to put me in a bad light. I guess no one had ever informed Mike that the E in ESPN stood for Entertainment.

Scoop is a clown. And the publishing of his fake ghetto posturing is an insult to black intelligence, and it interferes with intelligent discussion of important racial issues. Scoop showed up on the scene and all of a sudden I’m getting e-mails from readers connecting what I write to Scoop. And his stuff is being presented like grown folks should take it seriously. Please. I guess I’ll go Bill Cosby on you, but it’s about time we as black people quit letting Flavor Flav and the rest of these clowns bojangle for dollars.

My thoughts:
1. Mike Greenberg should be fired. Not only for his MLK comments but for being terrible.

2. For the most part I don’t want anybody to lose their job but things should be fair. Danyelle Sargent was shown the door so Barry Melrose and Scott Van Pelt should have to follow her. The Sargent video above is edited and doesn’t tell the complete story of her F-bomb. There were technical problems on ESPN2, so the anchors threw it to news, but the problems continued. Sargent made her comment when she thought her mic was off, not in the middle of the broadcast as the video makes it seem. Melrose made his comment coming out of a commercial break even though ESPN forced Dana Jacobson to apologize for Melrose (Still paying for her drunken roast rant) and she said he didn’t know they were live.. It’s not Barry’s fault. He’s Canadian. Up there, “Welcome back to the show” means “All cameras and microphones are off.” And I’d think Van Pelt was already on thin ice seeing how Scott Van Pelt was suspended from his radio show last year for calling Bud Selig a pimp among other things.

3. ESPN cares for the overweight. Kornheiser clowned Berman’s weight and Simmons went with the lazy and purely ill-intended “fat” tag. Both got some form of a two week suspension. Only professional athletes are allowed to be called fat or out of shape at the Worldwide Leader.

4. The world overreacted to the Rush Limbaugh and Jemele Hill comments. Tom Jackson and Michael Irvin both agree in some part with Rush Limbaugh. What’s more offensive is that ESPN has been retreading the Donovan McNabb topic for the last seven years. In the conversation above Steve Young talks about Koy Detmer replacing McNabb. Everybody that’s calling for Kevin Kolb to start in place of 5 needs to pay attention to this history lesson.

Jemele Hill fell victim to the fake outrage because she was vocal about Don Imus’ comments about the Rutgers women’s basketball team. The two comments have nothing in common but in this tit-for-tat, finger-pointing age we live in she committed a mortal sin. She said something that could be construed as controversial after speaking out against something she found offensive. At least ESPN suspended the editor that let Hill’s comments go to print. Didn’t they?