Le Batard Speaks Truth to both Trump and ESPN

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PGage

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Jul 19, 2019, 7:58:17 PM7/19/19
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My days of watching non event programming on ESPN are pretty much over, but might come back if they can start tolerating more of this. The whole “Send her back” obscenity, and inability of mainstream Republicans and moderates to call this the racist, in-American bullshit that it so obviously is, has literally got me searching the help wanted ads for clinical psychologists in other English speaking countries (seriously, that is what I have been doing this week). I was in Norway last month and noticed that everyone can speak English there, and I fell in love with Oslo and Bergen, not to mention Flam ( though the latter is so beautiful they probably don’t have much need for psychologists).



“We here at ESPN haven’t had the stomach for that fight, because Jemele [Hill] did some things on Twitter and you saw what happened after that, and then here all of a sudden nobody talks politics on anything unless we can use one of these sports figures as a meat-shield in the most cowardly possible way to discuss these subjects.”

[...]

“The only way we can discuss it around here—because this isn’t about politics, it’s about race; what you’re seeing happening around here is about race and it’s been turned into politics—we only talk about it around here when Steve Kerr or [Gregg] Popovich says something. We don’t talk about what is happening unless there’s some sort of weak, cowardly sports angle that we can run it through, when sports has always been a place where this stuff changes.”

[...]

“We won’t talk about it unless Russell Wilson is saying something about it on his Instagram page. Then we have the power to run with it. Weak-ass shield. It is antithetical to what we should be, and if you’re not calling it abhorrent, obviously racist, dangerous rhetoric, you’re complicit.”

It’s a great and angry and righteous monologue. By ESPN’s definition it is surely “pure politics” before you even get to the part where Le Batard all but explicitly calls Pitaro a coward and accuses him of complicity in a campaign to foment racial hostility toward black and brown people. It seems inevitable that Le Batard will now be suspended for saying true things on the air.”

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Bob Jersey

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Jul 19, 2019, 9:55:19 PM7/19/19
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He's been trying to get fired for almost as long as he's been on The Bunch's rolls, but when he finally does, his schmendrick sidekick Jon "Stugotz" Weiner will follow him, which will terrify Bristol no end... they tend to (want to) keep their schmendricks, one well-known example being Marty Smith...

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David Bruggeman

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Jul 20, 2019, 2:12:23 AM7/20/19
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While I don't spend much time with Le Batard's radio show, he was on his half hour ESPN program today.

Maybe the suits in Bristol need time to figure out what to do?  I'd figure announcing any suspension on a Friday would help this story fade away.

David

Bob Jersey

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Jul 20, 2019, 11:22:36 AM7/20/19
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David Bruggeman, to PGage, early Sat. (7/20):
While I don't spend much time with Le Batard's radio show, he was on his half hour ESPN program today.

Maybe the suits in Bristol need time to figure out what to do?  I'd figure announcing any suspension on a Friday would help this story fade away.

Andrew Marchand of the NY Post said that while the Bunch says its policy is still in place, Le Batard is not going anywhere.


I'd have to guess only their lawyers know the whole story.

B

Steve Timko

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Jul 20, 2019, 6:34:02 PM7/20/19
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ESPN reasserts policy on political talk after attack

By DAVID BAUDER
AP Media Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - ESPN is reminding employees of the network's policy to avoid talking politics after radio show host Dan Le Batard criticized President Donald Trump and the network itself on air.

An ESPN employee who requested anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak on personnel matters said Saturday that the reminder went out Friday to all employees, including Le Batard.

ESPN is not commenting publicly.

It's a reminder of former network anchor Jemele Hill, whose tweets about Trump got her in hot water with her bosses less than two years ago. She has since left ESPN.

Le Batard called Trump's comment that Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar and three other Democratic congresswomen of color should "go back" to the "places from which they came" deeply offensive and un-American.

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PGage

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Jul 20, 2019, 8:33:03 PM7/20/19
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Fuck ESPN

Brad Beam

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Jul 20, 2019, 8:48:20 PM7/20/19
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Or, to paraphrase Kevin, ESPN molests Animal Planet.

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Tom Wolper

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Jul 21, 2019, 12:20:20 PM7/21/19
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On Sat, Jul 20, 2019 at 8:48 PM Brad Beam <b.b...@suddenlink.net> wrote:
Or, to paraphrase Kevin, ESPN molests Animal Planet.

There was a gut reaction to Trump's 2016 victory saying he was such an outlier that he would stretch our politics and culture like a rubber band and once he is gone things will snap back to what they were before his election. As time goes on it is becoming clear that there will be no snap back. Our cultural institutions, like media companies, are very slow moving (they're built that way) and their reaction to the way things arte changing is to act like nothing is changing.

Up until now there was a consensus that overt racism would be excluded from mainstream conversation. Racists could be deemed some sort of "other" and be marginalized. The consensus gets smashed when the Chief Executive makes overtly racist statements. He can't be marginalized and his followers will line up behind his statements. If a media organization decides its on camera talent can't call out racism then what credibility do they have in the public sphere? ESPN (really all of Disney) and the other media organizations are going to have to catch up to the moment.

Kevin M.

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Jul 21, 2019, 12:24:38 PM7/21/19
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I suspect Disney would interpret the idea of playing catch-up to mean they should now rerelease Song of the South in the US so the overtly racist crowd can buy it.

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Steve Timko

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Jul 22, 2019, 7:47:28 PM7/22/19
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David Bruggeman

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Jul 23, 2019, 12:44:26 AM7/23/19
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Yet he was on his half hour ESPN TV show today.  Granted, it's a half-hour program in the PTI/Around the Horn format of short discussions on several stories, so it rarely gets political.  (When it does, it's usually related to Cuba as Le Batard's born in Cuba father is part of the show.)

It just seems weird to be off one and not off the other.  But ESPN's handling of these issues over the last several years has been weird to me in many ways.

David

On Monday, July 22, 2019, 7:47:28 PM EDT, Steve Timko <steve...@gmail.com> wrote:


On Jul 21, 2019, at 9:24 AM, "Kevin M." <drunkba...@gmail.com> wrote:


On Sun, Jul 21, 2019 at 9:20 AM Tom Wolper <two...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Jul 20, 2019 at 8:48 PM Brad Beam <b.b...@suddenlink.net> wrote:
Or, to paraphrase Kevin, ESPN molests Animal Planet.

There was a gut reaction to Trump's 2016 victory saying he was such an outlier that he would stretch our politics and culture like a rubber band and once he is gone things will snap back to what they were before his election. As time goes on it is becoming clear that there will be no snap back. Our cultural institutions, like media companies, are very slow moving (they're built that way) and their reaction to the way things arte changing is to act like nothing is changing.

Up until now there was a consensus that overt racism would be excluded from mainstream conversation. Racists could be deemed some sort of "other" and be marginalized. The consensus gets smashed when the Chief Executive makes overtly racist statements. He can't be marginalized and his followers will line up behind his statements. If a media organization decides its on camera talent can't call out racism then what credibility do they have in the public sphere? ESPN (really all of Disney) and the other media organizations are going to have to catch up to the moment.


I suspect Disney would interpret the idea of playing catch-up to mean they should now rerelease Song of the South in the US so the overtly racist crowd can buy it.


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Doug Fields

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Jul 23, 2019, 7:40:49 AM7/23/19
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Absent from his radio show/simulcast, by his own choice.  He hasn’t been suspended. 

 

He also does a 30-minute TV show with his father later in the day.  He was in attendance there, making a couple of very vague joke references to “being in trouble.”  He said he’d be back on the radio show on Tuesday.

 

Doug Fields

Tampa, FL

Bob Jersey

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Jul 24, 2019, 4:37:31 PM7/24/19
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WaPo (link): Le Batard to meet with ESPN prez Jimmy Pitaro in NY Thursday.

B

PGage

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Jul 24, 2019, 10:32:16 PM7/24/19
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At a certain point, you have to decide it is not worth working for any organization, no matter how much of a leader in its field it is, that is so venal and morally bankrupt that it can’t even call evil by its right name.

On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 1:37 PM 'Bob Jersey' via TVorNotTV <tvor...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

WaPo (link): Le Batard to meet with ESPN prez Jimmy Pitaro in NY Thursday.

B

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Bob Jersey

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Jul 25, 2019, 4:06:07 PM7/25/19
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PGage, Wed. (7/24):
At a certain point, you have to decide it is not worth working for any organization, no matter how much of a leader in its field it is, that is so venal and morally bankrupt that it can’t even call evil by its right name.


Well, that ain't happening straightaway... a source told USA Today they had a "positive conversation", and are now "in alignment" WRT one another's position. Danny boy's back in Miama* for HQ Friday and resumes on radio Monday.


*The late Al Neuharth, founder of that still-somewhat-significant paper, pronounced it as such during an interview with his counterpart at C-SPAN, Brian Lamb. This was in the 80s or 90s, and I wouldn't know if either side preserved it.

B

Mark Jeffries

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Jul 28, 2019, 10:14:14 PM7/28/19
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I'm pretty sure C-SPAN keeps *everything.*

Mark Jeffries
Saints Spotlight Editor
spotl...@gmail.com


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