ESPN writer fired following ethnic slur

[LSN80]

It seems Jeremy Lin is making a stir off the court as well. When the Knicks lost their first game with Lin in the starting lineup, the headline on ESPN.com read: "A Chink In The Armor." The phrase certainly has two meanings, but the one that jumps out is the word chink, which is a slur referring mainly to a person of Chinese ethnicity, but at times is used to refer to any person of East Asian descent.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/20/sport/espn-lin-slur/index.html

Anthony Federico was fired yesterday as a writer for both ESPN.com and Sportscenter following the quote appearing on ESPN's website, which stayed up for 35 minutes before ESPN officials took notice, and took it down. Anchor Max Bredos, who used the quote on the air, was suspended. After being fired, Federico issued the following statement:

"I'd love to tell Jeremy what happened and explain that this was an honest mistake, I'm so sorry that I offended people. I'm so sorry if I offended Jeremy. ESPN did what they had to do. I had a career that I was proud of."

For those unaware, Jeremy Lin is the starting point guard for the New York Knicks, for the past 8 games, anyway. Lin was inserted into the Knicks starting lineup following injuries to the point guards ahead of him, and holds the record for the highest points per game scored in the first 8 games of his career. Lin has noted that since high school, he has dealt with racial and ethnic slurs being hurled at him, such as "Wanton Soup", "Sweet and Sour Pork, and "Open Your Eyes", amongst others. Lin said the following regarding the slurs in the past, and the one posted by Federico and repeated by Bredos.

"I expect it, I'm used to it, it is what it is. I don't think it was on purpose. Lin said. At the same time, they've apologized. I don't care anymore."

As much as I'd like to buy Federico's story that it wasn't said on purpose, it's hard for me to do so. Lin has received alot of coverage lately for his play, and also racial issues that have arisen, specifically those from Floyd Mayweather Jr. Mayweather essentially stated that the only reason Lin is getting the coverage he is is because he's Asian, and he wouldn't be if he was a black player. So one would figure that Federico and others would be careful to ensure nothing they wrote even remotely resembled a slur. Further, this one is so obvious that you would think an intelligent man who writes for ESPN would recognize this. If written on purpose, he certainly deserved to be fired, and even if accidental, a suspension would have been warranted. But I think ESPN made the right call here, as he was incredibly foolish at best.

Do you think the headline written by Federico was accidental, or purposeful?

If it was an accident, did Federico still deserve to be fired?

 

[Dagger Dias]

People make mistakes, and this could very well have been one. If he was in the position he was in and chose purposefully to make a prejudiced remark like that, then he does deserve to be fired. I think people should be very careful of what they submit when it comes to things like that. You can really offend somebody with something that either was meant to be a joke, or something that is a complete misunderstanding. Whether he did it on purpose or not, he should have shown more caution and they definitely made the right call because otherwise another wave of negative publicity would surely have followed. If it was indeed an accident then a suspension would have been enough, although he acted foolishly here and deserved punishment regardless of his intentions.

 

[hatehabsforever]

It's hard for me to imagine that a comment of this nature, with this particular choice of words, was made by accident. I have no doubt that the comment made was purposeful, and that the guy who made it was trying to be funny. If this is indeed the case, of course he deserved to be fired. If I were to stretch my imagination and assume the comment was accidental, the guy still deserves discipline, either job termination or for sure a lengthy suspension without pay. Because at the very least, it was an incredibly stupid statement made by a guy who, in his position, should have known better. It's hard to believe that in today's day, such a comment could be made and that even if the guy were irresponsible enough to make it, no one else could have picked up on it and done a little damage control.

Meanwhile, kudos to Lin for accepting the apology, for taking the comment in stride, and not letting it serve as a distraction for himself or his teammates.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

Do you think the headline written by Federico was accidental, or purposeful?

There are way too many words in the English dictionary for him to choose from. Him trying to play it off as coincidence is pathetic.

If it was an accident, did Federico still deserve to be fired?

Again, I don't believe Federico for a second. Even if he says he didn't know that Asians were offended by the term I would still expect him to be fired. His job is to write content that will appeal and not offend a mass audience. If he does not know that the word Chink is offensive or does not have sense to Google it then he is too stupid to be a writer for ESPN.

 

[H33LTurn]

I dont understand how something like this could just fly under the radar, and while firing Federico was a bit much, ESPN did the right thing by disciplining the author and apologizing. Things like this happen, glad it was all taken care of thought.

 

[Sinister Shadows]

So a writer (I suppose who has been a good one thus far, I don't read ESPN articles) get's fired for writing and article, with a title that has a common phrase, and get's fired because of it. This is just another non-issue being massively overblown by people.

 

[Rayne]

Accident? Two things:

1) Bullshit.
2) Even if this was an honest to goodness mistake, bearing in mind that I believe calling this an accident is entirely bullshit, anyone working in media should be savvy enough to recognize racial slurs that may infuriate segments of their audience, and avoid using them.

An excellent piece of advice from a professor I had in the way back when was that you should just try to avoid using dual-use words like that entirely when writing professionally. You never would refer to a person "hunting coons" in a story, always "hunting raccoons". So even buying into this bullshit accident story, it's STILL something that should have been prevented through usage of casual journalistic discipline.

So, yes. If you don't fire him for being racially insensitive, you fire him for being grossly incompetent.

 

[TWJC: The Beginning]

There is no fucking way in hell or anywhere else that this was a mistake. It seems common place and almost accepted to make Asian jokes. Mostly because they don't make a scene and bitch and whine about it and go cry to Reverend Sharpton.

He should have gotten fired. There has been a tremendous amount of racism directed at Lin, mostly by jealous black journalists (Whitlock saying "some lucky lady is getting a few inches of pain tonight) or athletes (Mayweather saying all his hype is because he's Asian). If half the shit that has been said about Lin were said about any black athlete, a LOT more of a stir would be going on.

Yes he should have been fired. It's either racism or monumental incompetance. It's similar to if someone were to write a headline "LeBron plays *****rdly in 50 point, 0 assist performance".

 

[Serious Mozzarella]

It probably was an honest-to-god mistake. But he still should have been fired. When you're on live TV, you can't afford to fuck up that badly. He doesn't deserve to be blacklisted all together, but fuck, losing his job was probably the best case scenario from him.

 

[Diet Soda]

Yes, he should be fired and kept so. ESPN need to lead by example by showing that any kind of racism, intentional or deliberate, cannot be tolerated from professional sports journalists.
Lin has already had his early professional career marred by the ignorance of a minority of fans, and it should be nipped in the bud there. The sooner the public perception of Lin moves away from his ethnicity and towards his ability has a basketball player, the better.

 

[DaeChi]

I think this falls back to a situation that almost any and all writers have problems with when they're writing. The writer may know EXACTLY what they're trying to say, however it convey a completely different message than the one they're attempting to get across.

I've personally had to write research papers, essays, etc for college and I find that when I don't get my paper either peer reviewed, by the department of english department, or simply by my mother because I've been much too busy that I will undoubtedly have a simple mistake in either grammar, content that doesn't make sense to anyone BUT me, etc.

If it was an honest mistake, which I imagine it was, I believe it has more to do with ESPN's lack of having contraints on their editors. I've personally never had the opportunity to write for a newspaper, but my aunt is the editor of the local newspaper for my smalltown. Generally speaking my aunt is a very good editor, nevertheless whenever she writes an article I usually have to call her up and tease her about her few writting errors. It's typical, people don't see their own errors. Why? Not entirely sure, but it happens.

Clearly my local newspaper isn't going to have 2-3 editors they don't have the finances, but I would like to believe that ESPN has the cashflow to have 2-3 ediots if not more that can observe and critique one another's papers. Are you telling me that every single editor ESPN has did not realize the HUGE mistake made by Federico? Either that or ESPN needs to have more strict policies put on their editors.

So who's to truly blame? The editor? or ESPN themselves for not having more policies on their editors?