If you don’t follow sports at all (and I mean AT ALL!), then you don’t know about Jeremy Lin. Lin, who is of Taiwanese decent, has been taking the NBA by storm. The 21 year old has come out of nowhere and is off to one of the best starts in NBA history, shattering tons of records. For someone who lost interest in the NBA, Lin has made the sport fun to watch again.
So how does ESPN, the biggest name in Sports media, honor such an amazing athlete? With a headline like this:
“Chink” in the armor? That’s a great way to refer to one of the greatest newcomers in sporting history. ESPN has fired the writer of that article, but was that enough?
In the print media business (traditional and online) there are filters between the writers and readers. These filters are called ‘editors’. A writer authors their piece, then they send it to the editor before that article appears to the public. Does ESPN not engage in this most important practice of journalism, or did the editor who approved this headline get a free pass?
I think ESPN has more to answer to on this and until then they have become a total fail in sports reporting and journalism as a whole. Great job ESPN! You are the voice of American sports media and you just came off as the biggest bunch of racist idiots around.