Fox Sport Radio's Clay Travis broke the story Tuesday that ESPN had bumped college football broadcaster Robert Lee out of a Sept. 2 game in Charlotteville because violent mobs clashed there recently over the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue. The story spread like wildfire and ESPN took megawatts of heat for its PC overdose. On Wednesday, Travis went on Fox News with Tucker Carlson and Fox Radio with Todd Starnes to explain ESPN's blunder.
Travis, a frequent critic of the ever-growing liberalism of ESPN, told Carlson and Starnes:
What's the worse case scenario here? 100,000 people watch a crappy game between the University of Virginia and the College of William and Mary and a few people create memes: oh, look, Robert E. Lee is trying to sneak back into Charlottesville and nobody at ESPN stands up and says, you know what? In the grand scheme of things, if we just let him call the game, this is a 45-minute or one-hour story on social media that nobody remembers by the time the Alabama and Florida State game is over that Saturday night. Instead they have created a multi-day mushroom cloud surrounding the company and made me look like a genius for calling them MSESPN.
Carlson responded by reading a statement from John Skipper, the president of ESPN:
Given the amount of media attention being generated by one of the countless, routine decisions our local production teams make every day, I wanted to make sure you have the facts. There was never any concern -- by anyone, at any level – that Robert Lee’s name would offend anyone watching the Charlottesville game.
Among our Charlotte production staff there was a question as to whether – in these divisive times — Robert’s assignment might create a distraction, or even worse, expose him to social hectoring and trolling. Since Robert was their primary concern, they consulted with him directly. He expressed some personal trepidation about the assignment and, when offered the chance to do the Youngstown State/Pitt game instead, opted for that game — in part because he lives in Albany and would be able to get home to his family on Saturday evening.
I’m disappointed that the good intentions of our Charlotte colleagues have been intentionally hijacked by someone with a personal agenda, and sincerely appreciate Robert’s personal input and professionalism throughout this episode.
Carlson said, "I don't think I have read anything quite that dishonest in a long time. How mean is it to this guy Robert Lee in the end? They are not protecting him. They exposed him to ridicule. Made him famous in the worst way and prevented him from calling a game because of his name. It's cruel. ... This isn't the type of attention you want on the national scene."
Travis called Skipper's statement a lie.
When you put out an initial statement and then you have to follow it with another statement and then you have to follow it with a third statement, what you're realizing is that everybody is calling you on your B.S. And you are continuing to follow it with more B.S. and so by the time you get to the third statement, the first statement is probably the most reliable. It didn't tell the full story. But this is what ESPN does. This is why fans on both the left and right sides of the political spectrum have been abandoning the network because they aren't trustworthy and because they are MSESPN.
Britt McHenry, a conservative reporter who was one of the 100 victims of an April layoff at ESPN, was also on Tucker's program. She said of Skippers' statement, "It's more a reflection of society right now and how left-wing and PC it's gotten, that even your name, given at birth or the possibility of a meme on the internet, is a reason to make a personnel change. If that's what we are doing here, Tucker, everyone might be out of a job. Especially in this industry."
"It's mass hysteria. We will be embarrassed at this moment 20 years from now," Tucker commented.
Travis interjected that ESPN talks "to us like we are a bunch of idiots and imbeciles and sells crap and expects us to take it and say, oh my God, how lucky we are that ESPN is treating us this way. This is not true. This is a lie. ... If they come to an employee who might make $75,000 a year and rarely ever gets to call college football games and they say hey, we're a little bit concerned because you have the same name as Robert E. Lee ... in Charlottesville. Do you really believe the guy making $75,000 a year makes the decision about whether or not is he going to call the game or like every employee sitting out there right now ... when your rich bosses sit you down and say, hey we have a little concern, why don't you do this instead? He did what the company wanted him to do and now they are throwing him under the bus claiming they are afraid a few people would make fun of him during the game. Instead they created a national story that has now lasted for multiple days with his name completely connected to Robert E. Lee."
After Tucker bid adieu to Travis and McHenry, he brought on Fox Sports 1's Jason Whitlock briefly for his take on the ESPN-Lee fiasco. Always good for unique commentary, Whitlock said, "This is a Twitter-driven story. ESPN basically acknowledged why it was worried about the Twitter reaction. 'Were we far enough left on this position to be protected from a Twitter backlash?' That's what drove them to make this decision. How much farther left can we move so the Twitter won't kill us? That's what drove them to make this decision."
Whitlock said Skipper wanted to avoid the distraction of Robert Lee:
If you look at ESPN and the sports media's narrative on Colin Kaepernick, if the NFL says we want to avoid the distraction of Colin Kaepernick, so therefore we don't want to be associated with that, they are clobbered and beat up and how dare you suggest that Colin Kaepernick is any type of distraction. But when it's one of their (ESPN's) employees who is a potential distraction, they make the same damn decision as the NFL. That's the hypocrisy.
As NewsBusters' Vice President Dan Gainor says, ESPN is the "Extra Stupid Progressive Network." He also tweeted that Skipper formerly worked at Rolling Stone magazine and ESPN is "a 100-percent left-wing organization now."
