ESPN suspended SportsCenter host Jemele Hill for breaking the company’s social media policy. She posted two tweets encouraging people to boycott Dallas Cowboys advertisers. The reason? Cowboys owner Jerrey Jones threatened to sit any player who sits for the national anthem.
ESPN’s Statement on Jemele Hill: pic.twitter.com/JkVoBVz7lv
— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) October 9, 2017
Jemele Hill’s tweets
Or, how about not patronizing the advertisers who support the Cowboys? You can watch and do that, right? https://t.co/duPNqxFta7
— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) October 9, 2017
This play always work. Change happens when advertisers are impacted. If you feel strongly about JJ’s statement, boycott his advertisers. https://t.co/LFXJ9YQe74
— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) October 9, 2017
When Jemele Hill’s suspension is over, she needs to decide what she wants to be when she grows up. Does she want to be a social justice activist fighting for issues she believes are important? Does she want to represent ESPN as a host for SportsCenter?
I don’t see how she can be both.
The Dallas Cowboys are part of the National Football League. The National Football League is in partnership with ESPN. The network pays $1.9 billion a year to televise Monday Night Football. It’s inappropriate to have an employee of ESPN, let alone a SportsCenter host, go after advertisers.
Hosting SportsCenter used to be a big deal
To be a host on SportsCenter used to be a big deal. It represented the pinnacle of a person’s sports career. It be a talking-head on ESPN, reporting the news to the United States, was a privilege. I’m not sure it’s that way anymore. I don’t watch ESPN anymore except for 30 for 30 documentaries. I get my sports news from a lot of places these days. ESPN SportsCenter is not one of them.
To be a host of ESPN is still carries a lot of clout. Jemele Hill’s Twitter account has a blue check next to it, something it would not have if she were not on ESPN. She needs to recognize that. When she Tweets something stupid, it reflects on ESPN.
Jemele Hill cannot have it both ways. She cannot enjoy the advantages of being a SportsCenter host and also enjoy the freedoms of shitposting on Twitter. Calling for an NFL boycott while working for a company in partnership with the NFL is shitposting.
If she thinks she can do both, she’s wrong.
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