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ESPN apologizes for 'offensive' headline on Jeremy Lin

I thought, the first time I saw a pic of the headline, that someone was just trolling the internet with another Linmeme. What a fucking idiot.
 
BillBrasky said:
The should suspend Max Bretos for life. For speaking. What a douche.
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Did you actually watch the clip? I ask that seriously, not antagonistically. My impression was that it didn't seem to have been scripted since he was interviewing Walt Frazier about Lin when he said it, and he didn't crack a smile at all. Combined with the fact that his wife is Asian, I'm inclined to believe this one was an accident.
 
Can't let this thread end without mentioning that a week or so ago, I read about Waturu Misaka, the Japanese American who broke the NBA color barrier in 1947. While I can see headlines of that period saying something to the effect of "Celtics nipped by Knicks", today racial slurs of this kind should not be tolerated.
 
No I just hate Max Bretos. He's the worst. His fake ass voice gave me nightmares when he was working at FSC.
 
CaptainAwesome said:
and how often is that expression used to describe a minor loss? without either team's mascot having anything to do with Knights or anything dealing with armor. there is no way he would have by chance picked that one expression to use as a headline for espn.com. those headlines ALWAYS have puns it them. like everytime they have a WF article is has something to do with "Wake Up..."

if you think this was an unfortunate coincidence you are being extremely naive
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I think it was a horrible choice and there is a good chance it was a bad attempt at humor, but to say that there is "no other reason to use the word" along with the rest of that post indicated that the expression itself is racist, not the context.

The on air statement was clearly not intended to be racist. I don't know that the follow up was either (I am inclined to think he was using it because of the other interview), but the person is a complete idiot for not thinking about it before posting.
 
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I remember wondering to myself last week when they were running the nickname "Lintendo" how they could get away with that in this era of political correctness. I think certain ethnicities just tend to get overlooked in the context of racism.
 
"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."
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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."
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http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/knicks/jeremy-lin-slur-honest-mistake-fired-espn-editor-anthony-federico-claims-article-1.1025566
 
He's used a homonym of a racial slur "at least 100 times" in headlines? He should be careful with even the vague appearance of a racial slur even if it's not the same word. You don't see a word like "niggardly" in headlines even though it's a completely different word because you don't even want to be close a racial slur.
 
PhDeac said:
He's used a homonym of a racial slur "at least 100 times" in headlines? He should be careful with even the vague appearance of a racial slur even if it's not the same word. You don't see a word like "niggardly" in headlines even though it's a completely different word because you don't even want to be close a racial slur.
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So we should self-censor because people are morons?
 
Spot the Wonder said:
So we should self-censor because people are morons?
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Not sure what you're saying. The whole point of a headline is to briefly represent a story so a reader can make a snap judgement about the content of the article, hopefully deciding to read it.
 
Man, the anti-PC patrol around here really needs to learn when to pick its battles.

Headline was clearly intentional. And, as FD33 mentioned earlier, even if it wasn't, dude deserved to get fired for not realizing what he was doing.
 
PhDeac said:
He's used a homonym of a racial slur "at least 100 times" in headlines? He should be careful with even the vague appearance of a racial slur even if it's not the same word. You don't see a word like "niggardly" in headlines even though it's a completely different word because you don't even want to be close a racial slur.
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This is ridiculous. Chink in the armor is not nearly as uncommon or mistakable as niggardly.
 
A few years ago a DC official was fired for using the word niggardly (correctly by the way). I think he may have been reinstated later.
 
Not sure I'd go as far as PH here, but I will say part of this guy's job was to notice something like that. Even if you type "Chink in the armor" without intending it that way, you have to realize when you see it on the screen that, oh shit, this is a story about an Asian guy, I can't have that headline. Part of headline-writing is catching unintentional shit like that.
 
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