Sports Media

Priorities: Obama Wants NFL's Redskins to Consider Name Change, Ignores Fact That Those Affected Mostly Oppose It
By Tom Blumer | October 5, 2013 | 4:04 PM EDT

Never mind the government shutdown. What's really important in Obamaland is apparently whether football's Washington Redskins keep their Redskins team nickname.

The Associated Press's Julie Pace, with help from Joseph White and Darlene Superville, has an 880-word writeup on this breathtakingly important subject. Too bad the entire premise — that Indians "feel pretty strongly" about mascots and team names that depict negative stereotypes about their heritage," and that the "Redskins name is one such negative stereotype — is false, based on results reported by ESPN columnist Rick Reilly in September. First, a few AP excerpts (bolds are mine):

‘Glee’ on the Gridiron?
By Matt Philbin | March 20, 2013 | 11:58 AM EDT

If liberals in the sports media have their way, your favorite sporting event will soon be a little more like an episode of “Glee.” Writers and talking heads at outlets from ESPN to NBC Sports are in a full-court press. They want to see openly gay athletes in American sports, no matter what it means for the games, the fans, or the athletes themselves.

Perhaps envious that their news colleagues get to cover – and advocate for – what a Washington Post reporter recently called “the civil rights issue of our time,” sports journalists have been long been obsessed with gay athletes. Commentator after commentator have taken to ESPN’s website to assure us “the issue of sports and homosexuality isn't going away,” to call a football player “intelligent and articulate athlete when he made a stand for gay rights,” and to wonder where the gay Jackie Robinson is.

Keith Olbermann Begging ESPN to Hire Him
By Matthew Sheffield | March 4, 2013 | 12:03 PM EST

After a few months crying in the bathtub, disgraced left-wing television personality Keith Olbermann has crawled back out into public view in an effort to beg sports network ESPN to hire him back. 

Nothing has come of his efforts so far but the New York Times reports that Olbermann has at least been given a meeting with ESPN president John Skipper.

AP, ESPN, and the League Itself Don't Like the Lack of 'Diversity' in This Year's Coaching Changes
By Tom Blumer | January 19, 2013 | 12:06 PM EST

There were eight coaching changes in the National Football League during the past few weeks. It must be assumed in the absence of contrary evidence that each franchise's owners made their choice based on who they believe has the best chance to take their team to the playoffs and Super Bowl.

The "problem" is, according to league's human resource people (are those really full-time jobs?) and their eager supporters at the Associated Press and ESPN, all eight new coaches are white. As a result, barely four months after the league earned a "high diversity hiring grade" from The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport ("its third consecutive A grade on racial hiring and its first C-plus for gender hiring"), the "Rooney Rule," which requires that teams interview at least one at least one minority candidate for head coaching and top managerial jobs, is not good enough (bolds are mine):

ESPN Drops Racial Loudmouth Rob Parker
By Matthew Sheffield | January 9, 2013 | 9:45 AM EST

ESPN has parted ways with Rob Parker, a commentator for the sports network who caused a national controversy by saying that Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III is “not one of us” and only “kind of black” because he is engaged to a white woman and is rumored to be a Republican.

Parker made those comments on December 13 and was suspended by ESPN for 30 days. Parker apologized for his remarks but has since defended them by saying he was taken “out of context.”

ESPN Suspends Analyst Rob Parker for Insulting Redskins QB Robert Griffin III
By Matthew Sheffield | December 14, 2012 | 2:02 PM EST

Cable sports network ESPN has suspended its commentator Rob Parker following his offensive racial tirade against Washington Redskins player Robert Griffin III. In a segment on yesterday’s First Take program, Parker said that the rookie quarterback was “not one of us” and that he was only “kind of black” because he is engaged to a white woman, is rumored to be a Republican, and has spoken in favor of racial neutrality, sentiments that the sports analyst derided as “cornball.”

“Following yesterday’s comments, Rob Parker has been suspended until further notice,” network spokesman Josh Krulewitz said in a statement. “We are conducting a full review.”

ESPN Analyst Rob Parker: Redskins Quarterback Robert Griffin III Not Really Black Since He Might Be Republican
By Matthew Sheffield | December 14, 2012 | 1:32 AM EST

Update 14:23. Rob Parker has been suspended for his offensive remarks.

During the Thursday edition of the ESPN show First Take, analyst Rob Parker  injected racial issues into the game as he took a bitter swipe at Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III, criticizing him for being engaged to a white woman and possibly being one of those evil, nasty Republicans.

“Is he a brother or a cornball brother?” Parker said. “He’s not really one of us. He’s kind of black, but he’s not really, like, the guy you want to hang out with.”

Fox's Gutfeld Scores Direct Hits on Costas Hypocrisy, Whitlock's Bigotry, Media's Predictability
By Tom Blumer | December 5, 2012 | 8:44 AM EST

In a video posted at the Daily Caller by Jeff Poor (HT Hot Air), Fox News's Greg Gutfeld went after Bob Costas's opportunism and hypocrisy on gun rights in the wake of the Jovan Belcher tragedy. He also took on Jason Whitlock's inexcusable characterization of those who believe that the Constitution's Second Amendment means what it says and insist that our government to continue to act as if it does as racists.

The video and a transcript follow the jump (internal links added by me; bolds are mine):

MSNBC's The Cycle Discusses Gun Safety: Kornacki Clashes with Cupp Over Domestic Violence Stats
By Ryan Robertson | December 3, 2012 | 6:32 PM EST

When your network milked the "war on women" for all its worth, it's a little much to condescend to a conservative woman in a segment dealing with gun control and domestic violence, but Steve Kornacki turned up the volume on his boiler plate anti-gun talking points in a segment on the Dec. 3 edition of MSNBC's The Cycle that discussed Jovan Belcher's murder-suicide and the resulting exploitation by sports journalists like Jason Whitlock and Bob Costas.

The panel's lone conservative, columnist S.E. Cupp reasoned that blaming an inanimate object for violence is a dangerous and misguided assumption, but co-host and Salon contributor Steve Kornacki could not have disagreed more. [ video & transcript below ]

Jim Gray Sides with Costas & Whitlock on Gun Control, Then Backtracks: WaPo Calls for More Editorializing
By Ryan Robertson | December 3, 2012 | 3:50 PM EST

In an appearance on Monday's America's Newsroom program on Fox News, veteran sportscaster Jim Gray at first expressed what seemed like absolute agreement with NBC's Bob Costas regarding the need for more gun control in light of the horrific Jovan Belcher murder-suicide on Saturday.

In what turned into a sanctimonious lecture during halftime programming on Sunday Night Football, NBC's Costas endorsed an anti-gun screed by Fox Sports columnist Jason Whitlock. Asked for his thoughts by Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum, Gray wholeheartedly agreed with Costas and Whitlock, but then oddly backtracked just as the interview was concluding [ video (via MRCTV's Ian Hanchett) and transcript below ]

Black Sports Columnist Jason Whitlock Criticizes Politically Correct ‘Information Bubble’ Around Black QBs
By Matthew Sheffield | October 25, 2012 | 11:29 AM EDT

Back in 2003, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh ignited a firestorm of criticism from the left-dominated sports media for daring to point out the obvious fact that many people in the NFL and the media hype up black quarterbacks in the hopes of seeing them succeed.

Limbaugh revisited the topic yesterday on his program by highlighting a column by black sports writer Jason Whitlock, a man known for a number of years for his commendable ability to cut through political correctness in sports:

Media Lions Roar at Christian Athletes
By Paul Wilson | September 6, 2012 | 3:39 PM EDT

During the first centuries of Christianity, Christians were thrown to lions in arenas to be jeered by mocking crowds. Today, Christian athletes face the taunts of a media strongly opposed to their faith.

No Christian athlete draws more media catcalls than New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow. CBSChicago.com writer Dan Bernstein dismissed Tebow as “little more than an affable simpleton” and slammed his fans as “lunatic-fringe cultists.” Columnist Rabbi Joshua Hammerman of The Jewish Week expressed his desire that Tebow’s Broncos would lose a playoff game because a Broncos victory would “buoy his faithful, and emboldened faithful can do insane things, like burning mosques, bashing gays and indiscriminately banishing immigrants.” Radio host Craig Carton was the latest to jump on the anti-Tebow bandwagon, calling him a “fraud” and complaining that he “clearly thinks he is Jesus” on his August 14 radio show.