How unoriginal. Awful Announcing’s Ian Casselberry is the latest media lemming to use a sports analogy to diss President Donald Trump’s contesting of the presidential election. In roasting Newsmax for allegedly encouraging unsubstantiated election conspiracy theories, Casselberry joins the Washington Post’s Thomas Boswell in propping up flimsy sports analogies to echo Joe Biden’s denial of election fraud.
Casselberry’s story is a reaction to a Saturday Night Live spoof of Newsmax in which “Sportsmax” broadcasters challenge the fact that the New York Jets have a record of 0-12.
“Newsmax has gained notoriety among political media and many who favor conservative politics during the 2020 presidential election and its aftermath,” Casselberry writes. “Donald Trump and his supporters have often praised the cable channel and its website for positive coverage, especially when it disputes the election results and encourages conspiracy theories about voter fraud. So what if Newsmax decided to branch out into sports coverage.”
Saturday Night Live played out that scenario in the sketch titled “Sportsmax.” In an analogy to Trump’s claim he won the election, SNL’s Alex Moffat and Beck Bennett portrayed sportscasters who swear the Jets have really won all but one of their games.
“A lot of mainstream sports networks like ESPN are saying that the Jets have not won a single game this year, that they’re 0-12,” says Moffat, acting as Sportsmax anchor Robert King. Analyst Drew Matarazo (Bennett) counters that the Jets have actually won 11 games.
To support this assertion, Bennett points to an October game when the Jets took a 3-0 lead over the Bills in the first quarter.
“But then something suspicious happened, right?” Bennett suggests. “The Bills start getting all these points, outta God knows where.” You know, just like how Joe Biden’s vote totals mysteriously spiked like crazy in the middle of election night.
Saturday Night Live’s Timothée Chalamet and Pete Davidson joined the Sportsmax discussion with Bennett and Moffat as “Jetsperts.” Davidson disputed the Jets’ 20-3 loss to the Dolphins in November, questioning the accuracy of the NFL’s scoring of that game.
After recounting the Saturday Night Live sketch, Casselberry ponders two questions. “What if 500 Jets fans signed sworn affidavits saying they saw their team win that matchup? How could eight million hard-working Jets fans be wrong?”
This was all an amusing spoof, to Casselberry, on Newsmax’s indulging in “alternative facts” and conspiracy theories, resulting in growing popularity with the outgoing president, his supporters and former associates.
Casselberry further piles on Newsmax by pointing out that Trump’s former press secretary Sean Spicer has a show on Newsmax. It’s only acceptable for former Democrat press secretaries like ABC’s George Stephanopoulos to pass themselves off as objective journalists.
“So many blistering hot sports takes could come from this approach,” Casselberry adds. “Maybe we should look for it to be daytime programming on a sports network someday.”
Slanted partisan reports like Casselberry’s only reinforce a 2019 NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll demonstrating that more Americans trust the Trump Administration than the media and Congress as a whole.
