Obama

The Double-Standard of ESPN on Obama criticism

Don’t be critical of Obama anywhere in your social media outlets if you work for ESPN, or you’ll be strongly chastised:

“Paul’s tweet was not consistent with our social media policy, and he has been reminded that political commentary is best left to those in that field,” spokesman Andy Hall told Game On! in a statement.

ESPN’s Hall would not comment on whether Azinger, who won the 1993 PGA Championship, will be fired, suspended or punished in some way. “We handle that internally,” he said.

Below is Paul Azinger’s tweet, with a link if you want to retweet it!


 

But does the tweet actually go against ESPN’s social media policy? Here is the entire policy for you to peruse.

“…we will hold all talent who participate in social networking to the same standards we hold for interaction with our audiences across TV, radio and our digital platforms.”

Now the policy sets out that ESPN commentators and hosts should not break news on their social media, or talk about the development of a story. It even says that if you’re going to talk about sports, you need to have it approved in written form by your ESPN supervisor! Quite a short leash they have their employees on.

UNLESS, of course, you’re critical of Capitalism and Wall Street. Kevin Blackistone is a panelist on EPSN’s “Around the Horn” show . You’ll remember Kevin – he was the crackhead who demanded we stop singing the national anthem at sports events because of the war imagery it contains.

The ESPN panelist tweeted the following, to the sound of crickets from the ESPN Ministry of Truth:

 

“But, SOOPER,” you might say, “that’s a retweet, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Kevin Blackistone agrees! You just hate him because he’s black!!”

Frankly, I don’t appreciate the accusation, and I would recommend you shove it, reader. Even if it were the case that you might offer a defense of ESPN’s decision to rebuke Azinger’s tweet and ignore Blackistone’s tweet, again, I quote from the social policy of ESPN:

“Think before you re-tweet. Intended or not, the dissemination of others’ tweets under your name represents an endorsement of that content…”

Aha! Don’t you feel stupid NOW, reader?

Well anyway, even if he hadn’t simply retweeted something, here we have the same sentiment as the Azinger tweet – a criticism of Obama not doing his job, and golfing too much:


So why does Blackistone get away with it and Paul Azinger doesn’t?


Kevin is also known (barely) by his posts in Politico, which seems to undermine any suggestion that ESPN simply doesn’t want their commentators to talk about politics. Blackistone went as far as to write in favor of Obama wielding the power of the presidency to sway the recent NFL lockout towards the union side. He wrote,

So, to riff on a quote from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., not to stand up for unions everywhere is a threat to unions everywhere. And unions seem to be under siege across the country now.

Wisconsin Republicans said last month that the bill stripping their state’s public employees of much of their collective-bargaining rights was in effect — after a legislative agency published it in the face of a judge’s order against doing so. Florida also approved a bill to ban automatic dues deduction and require union members to sign off on the use of dues for political purposes — which unions and Democrats criticized as union-busting tactics.

How can ESPN justify their criticism to Paul Azinger when Blackistone has been getting away with open political commentary?

Here’s another example of the ESPN doublespeak doublestandard.

Debbis Schlussel blogged way back in November 2008, right after Obama’s election victory, that broadcaster Chris Fowler has equated those people who would not vote for Obama as the same kind of people that would not hire a black coach. So, we’re all racists.

Now this wasn’t even on social media – this was broadcast on ESPN!

Many people then complained to ESPN, and all they respondedwas a dismissive statement with no repercussions for Fowler:

Thank you for writing, [insert first name].
We understand your concerns. The political reference was an unnecessary addition to the valid point he was making about the lack of diversity in college football coaching. We have spoken with Chris about it. We appreciate you contacting us.
Sincerely,
ESPN Viewer Response Team

Oh well, there’s so many examples of the Media sucking up to democrats while trying to appear objective, it’s hard not to just give up and respond as Jonah Goldberg did to media bias: “To hell with you people!!”

 

And just for extra measure, pro-Obama ESPN bias before the election, and more commie tweets from Blackistone: