After ESPN announced it was cutting around 100 jobs, public editor Jim Brady jumped on Twitter to clarify that the network’s decision had nothing to do with viewers jumping ship due to ESPN’s insistence on mixing sports and liberal politics, and it would continue to mix sports and politics, like it or not.
The Federalist’s Sean Davis grabbed a screen shot of some particularly unsportsmanlike content on ESPN’s website:
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/857349708133675008
That was Wednesday, and it looks like ESPN took its audience’s complaints to heart. Nah, not really, although the editors did trim down those five poems on the new feminism to just four. Make no mistake, ESPN is still the nation’s go-to source for feminist poetry, but someone decided that an ode to convicted cop killer Asatta Shakur was out of bounds.
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/857591783718563840
I don't understand why @ESPN is doing all of this. Are they trying to fail? Are they trying to go bankrupt?
— The Lone Tweeter (@LoneTweeter) April 27, 2017
Bre Payton writes:
One day before the network laid off many of its employees, it published five poems about feminism and political resistance on its website geared toward women, ESPNW.
The first poem in the series is called “Revolution” and it’s dedicated to Asatta Shakur, an icon among black power enthusiasts who was convicted of murdering a police officer in 1977. She escaped from prison in 1979 and fled to Cuba in 1984, where she’s been hiding ever since.
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The poem has since been taken down, with an editor’s note explaining that it was found to be inappropriate.
This is when you realize ESPN has totally lost touch with its audience *or* wants to become a smaller, niche player https://t.co/WDqyl9mcB3
— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) April 27, 2017
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Related:
Cop-killer mural update: Marquette University's Assata Shakur tribute 'is being removed immediately' http://t.co/PQdS0BjFbQ
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) May 18, 2015
Houdini Clinton Makes Anderson Cooper's Question on Assata Shakur Vanish https://t.co/9tmFZcxTNQ pic.twitter.com/G8WqYwzjaI
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) March 22, 2016
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