ESPN Writer Fired For Racist Jeremy Lin Headline — Was This The Right Move?

The ESPN overnight headline writer has been fired over the ‘Chink in the Armor’ headline, but was this the right choice by ESPN?

It was an honest mistake. Writers mess up all the time. I mess up all the time. Hell, sometimes we even get called out on our mistakes.

And then we learn never to make the same mistake again, especially in the Internet age when everything is so fast-paced and there is little to no oversight for writers in the form of editorial proofreading. But the ESPN evening headline writer was not even allowed this courtesy. Common sense dictates that the writer was likely not a racist, as the same phrasing was used by ESPN Max Bretos, who apologized profusely via Twitter and pointed out this his own wife is Asian. Bertos received 30 days suspension, but the ESPN writer was not afforded the same courtesy.

Now, this writer will likely never write for a sports publication again, and will always be known in the industry as the guy who was fired by ESPN for his ‘racist’ Jeremy Lin headline. And that’s really too bad — as ESPN pushed this writer into the fire, essentially destroying any future he had in a career in sports journalism. People may have been upset, but it wasn’t as though anyone was calling for this writer’s blood.

This is an example of ESPN falling to irrational PC syndrome, and I for one am far more embarrassed on ESPN’s handling of the situation. ESPN should have stood by their writer, and its unfortunate that this was not the case.

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