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ESPN Employee: ‘I Pretend I’m A Democrat So I Can Keep My Job Here'
Hotair.com ^ | 9-16-17 | Matt Vespa

Posted on 09/16/2017 12:19:01 PM PDT by DeweyCA

It was another bad week for ESPN. Controversy erupted when host Jemele Harris tweeted that President Donald Trump was a white supremacist. The network said that this issue had been addressed, and that she readied her actions were inappropriate. Oh, and those tweets don’t reflect the position of ESPN—classic public elations move here. They also didn’t fire her. That’s fine. Frankly, I don’t think what Hill did was an offense that warranted termination. It was worthy of a reprimand and a social media torching. It was a stupid remark. We all know that.

Jemele Hill ✔ @jemelehill Replying to @DonnyParlock and 2 others Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists. 4:54 PM - Sep 11, 2017

Yet, where it gets into eyeroll territory is the whole fiasco with anchor Linda Cohn, who was suspended when she said that politics might be a contributing factor to ESPN’s declining subscription base. She said this in April:

Longtime ESPN anchor Linda Cohn believes the network’s embrace of political issues is at least partially to blame for falling subscription rates. “That is definitely a percentage of it,” Cohn said, when asked Thursday on New York radio show “Bernie and Sid” if viewers were tuning out because of politics, according to the New York Post. “I don’t know how big a percentage, but if anyone wants to ignore that fact, they’re blind.” ESPN has lost 10 million subscribers over the past five years as “cord-cutting” allows viewers to cancel their cable subscriptions in favor of online streaming services.

Like I said, ESPN is a network where you can call the president a racist, but get suspended if you criticize the network. Clay Travis of Outkick The Coverage, and a sports analyst for Fox Sports 1, reported on this development earlier this week and got a ton of statements from his sources within the network upon the Hill backlash. One employee said, “I’m tired of pretending this company is not full of s**t” (via Outkick) [emphasis mine]:

…most inside ESPN kept the Cohn story quiet until yesterday, when Jemele Hill received no punishment for Tweeting Donald Trump was a “white supremacist,” that Trump was only elected president because he was white and had the support of racists and that Trump’s administration — the cabinet of which features a black man, an Indian woman, an Asian woman, and multiple Jewish people — was “largely…white supremacists.”

At that point the floodgates broke and employee after employee reached out to Outkick to share the Cohn story and other comments. (Outkick granted them anonymity because they all feared being fired if they used their names. Plus, these are the same sources that have consistently been correct about ESPN’s firings, the Robert Lee debacle and now the Linda Cohn suspension.)

Said another, different ESPN personality, “If Jemele can say that and Linda can’t say what she said, what kind of standard actually exists here? There isn’t one. There’s clearly a double standard. If you say things the company agrees with, you don’t get punished. If you say things the company disagrees with, you do get punished. Maybe even fired.”

Another prominent employee who also requested anonymity stated, “If I’d said Obama got elected because he was black is there any way I’d still be employed here? No chance. But Jemele can say Trump got elected because of white racists and no one does anything? They protect the people they agree with politically. They give them better jobs, more money, everyone can see it.”

Another employee recently contacted Outkick and said, “I pretend I’m a Democrat so I can keep my job here. And there are others just like me. We’re like a secret society inside ESPN.”


This isn’t the first time the sports network has stepped on a rake. In August, they reassigned an Asian anchor named Robert Lee from providing coverage of the University of Virginia vs. William & Mary football game because his name was too similar to that of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Yes, it seems Asian Confederates are a problem, ESPN. Dear Lord, fellas.

Travis said he has no problem with politics being mentioned in sports talk, though when only liberal ideas can be accepted—there’s a problem. That’s fair. This take on it; not so much:

KSᴛʀᴇᴇᴛHɪᴘsᴛᴇʀ @KStreetHipster Replying to @KStreetHipster You're either for social justice or not. And demanding that your thousands of employees remain silent on social justice issues is evil. 6:08 PM - Sep 15, 2017


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: censorship; discrimination; espn; tolerance
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You just have to shake your head at ESPN's stupidity of alienating a significant portion of their audience. And si.com (Sports Illustrated website) is just as bad. They constantly have columnists pushing liberal politics into their columns. And si.com no longer has a "Comments" section where readers can correct the writers by pointing out their errors and bias. Liberals really make sports much less enjoyable for conservatives. I will gladly watch them lose their marketshare and profitability. They deserve to lose. Michael Jordan was right when he was asked why he didn't get involved in politics. He said that "Republicans wear shoes too." He was a smart businessman. Too bad that ESPN and Sports Illustrated refuse to learn from a Black businessman like Michael Jordan.
1 posted on 09/16/2017 12:19:01 PM PDT by DeweyCA
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To: All

There’s that darned conversation again that Eric Holder said white people were too cowardly to have...


2 posted on 09/16/2017 12:30:24 PM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: DeweyCA

It is not just ESPN. It is the entire Disney leadership that needs to be dealt with in a definitive manner.


3 posted on 09/16/2017 12:31:38 PM PDT by allendale (.)
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To: DeweyCA

bttt


4 posted on 09/16/2017 12:34:01 PM PDT by timestax
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To: DeweyCA

They went too far when they gave the ESPY Profile In Courage Award to Bruce Jenner for becoming transgendered over the teen women basketball who kept playing despite terminal cancer.

That and giving a platform to Obama to make his NCAA tournament brackets. That’s when ESPN crossed the line into being political advocacy.

And watch these “30-in-30” documentaries and notice how many of them turn the clock back to slavery or the civil rights era of the 1960s as a “starting point” for black athlete struggles, particularly Southern blacks.


5 posted on 09/16/2017 12:50:10 PM PDT by OrangeHoof (Let Trump Be Trump. Would you rather have Hillary?)
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To: DeweyCA

Leftists are at the head of most major corporations, and are doing what the government can’t do because of the First Amendment: harassing and prosecuting people for thinking non-PC thoughts.


6 posted on 09/16/2017 12:54:04 PM PDT by I want the USA back (Cynicism is the only option for remaining sane in a criminally insane world.)
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To: OrangeHoof
its all the networks...

last night on Jeopardy, there was a question about stocks, and the question was something like ..."this company by the name of GS, which gave heavily to the Trump campaign..."

as if the toons, the bushes and the bamma arse didn't have wall street and GS stuck up their behinds.

7 posted on 09/16/2017 12:56:55 PM PDT by cherry
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To: DeweyCA

I worked in an office like that, and one day finally decided I’d had enough.
I got fed up with ‘passing’ and replied to a water cooler query: “No. I don’t think Bill Maher is funny. I think he’s an (fill in the blank).
The reactions, hmmm, stuned beebers all around. The closest thing I can think of to describe it would be—he’s right in the middle of a prayer and your preacher/priest/rabbi pauses, lifts his leg and lets one really rip.
Heh. Felt good man.


8 posted on 09/16/2017 12:58:38 PM PDT by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all armed conservatives)
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To: I want the USA back

No surprise with Leftist run,bankrupt ESPN. I stopped watching a while back and I encouraged others that were still watching to keep an eye on the polical atmosphere at that company.Many I know ,no longer listen to,watch or read ESPN propoganda.


9 posted on 09/16/2017 1:04:42 PM PDT by MGunny
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To: DeweyCA

If you are cutting your cable or have cut it. This is good info.

Sling Blue does not carry any ESPN nor Disney channels.

The link below explains this.

http://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3586354/posts?page=17#17


10 posted on 09/16/2017 1:12:08 PM PDT by Grampa Dave (Did voting for Trump for President, make 62+ million of us into Deplorable Racists/Nazis? NO! NADA!)
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To: DeweyCA

Shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, but black women are a protected class in the federal government.

A bill now in the Senate could transform the federal government: the Federal Employee Non-Discrimination Act of 2017. Already passed in the House, supervisors would be held accountable when they violate the rights of those who work for them. An entry in their permanent personal file would be recorded, virtually eliminating any chance for promotion.

The mere possibility of such an action should make these Napoleans think twice.


11 posted on 09/16/2017 1:16:14 PM PDT by Night Hides Not (Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad! Remember Gonzales! Come and Take It!)
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To: DeweyCA

Hey, come on! It isn’t that simple; to just pretend you’re a democRAT. You also have to pretend you’re okay with being a shameless liar, hate the Constitution, are pro-infanticide in the womb; pretty much bereft of any sense of morality. Like a muslim; anything is “moral” that helps advance the party or the cult. IMHO.


12 posted on 09/16/2017 1:16:29 PM PDT by Tucker39 (Read: Psalm 145. The whole psalm.....aloud; as praise to our God.)
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To: DeweyCA

Not surprising that people have to pretend to be liberals to maintain employed. It must be pretty common at universities and in Hollywood as well.


13 posted on 09/16/2017 1:22:47 PM PDT by EdnaMode
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To: allendale

They are corporately linked to ABC and ABC has links to the BBC in news and so on........

The White House could send a message along the lines of a prohibition on ABC and BBC from the WH press room citing Curt Schilling and Rush Limbaugh at ESPN and so on.


14 posted on 09/16/2017 1:30:09 PM PDT by Nextrush
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To: DeweyCA

Why does anyone watch that left wing, brain dead nonsense?


15 posted on 09/16/2017 1:34:14 PM PDT by SaraJohnson ( Whites must sue for racism. It's pay day.)
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To: EdnaMode
Not surprising that people have to pretend to be liberals to maintain employed. It must be pretty common at universities and in Hollywood as well.

Actually, it isn't confined to just those areas. The dirty little secret is that much of corporate America is run by liberals, now, so even an area that used to be pretty strongly conservative is now infected with this SJW BS.

16 posted on 09/16/2017 1:48:20 PM PDT by Major Matt Mason (The U.S. Senate - where American freedom goes to die.)
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To: Major Matt Mason

Yeah good point. Most of the people I worked with were elated when Obama was reelected.


17 posted on 09/16/2017 2:00:24 PM PDT by EdnaMode
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To: EdnaMode

Depressing thread.


18 posted on 09/16/2017 2:16:25 PM PDT by Ciexyz (I'm conservative & traditionalist.)
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To: DeweyCA

Bill Rasmussen would hate the network he created. Of course, Walt would hate his company he started...


19 posted on 09/16/2017 2:50:53 PM PDT by Deplorable American1776 (Proud to be a DeplorableAmerican with a Deplorable Family...even the dog is DEPLORABLE :-))
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To: OrangeHoof

Lauren Hill was Athlete of the Century. All she wanted to do was to put on a college basketball uniform and play the game she loved. A hero to girls everywhere. So ESPN gives an award to Bruce Jenner for putting on a dress.
Rot in hell ESPN. Bowing down to 3% of the population is not smart.


20 posted on 09/16/2017 3:09:25 PM PDT by Kozy (new age haruspex; "Everyone has a plan 'till they get punched in the mouth.")
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