And so it continues. Even the sports mainstream networks are relentlessly and openly attacking people who MAY lean conservative.
Tuesday, Fox Sports' Undisputed commentators, Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe, went full-court-press on Oklahoma State University Head Football Coach Mike Gundy after OSU Running Back, Chuba Hubbard, declared that wearing a One America News (OAN) t-shirt was unacceptable.
In their conversation, Bayless and Sharpe agreed that Gundy “may not survive this.”
In his soliloquy about the topic, Bayless readily admits that he had no previous knowledge of OAN. So he researched them the night before the show in order to prepare for this topic.
Apparently, he should have researched them a bit harder. Here are the four big mistakes that he, and many others, have been making through sports media about all of this.
Mistake 1:
He starts framing his argument by talking about a “recent” video clip from Liz Wheeler, where she called Black Lives Matter a “farce,” in an attempt to discredit the network from the outset.
There are two issues in that statement alone. The first is that the video he refers to is from four years ago (and was given in response to the gunning down of 5 police officers at a BLM protest in Texas.) The second is that Wheeler specified that she was referring to the BLM movement, not the concept that black lives matter (obviously they do.) The popular video clip that Bayless is most likely referring to here also maliciously cuts her out of context numerous times. The full video can be found here.
Mistake 2:
Additionally, Bayless questions comments that Gundy made about OAN back in April, during an interview about the team’s hopeful Covid-19 response plans.
In these comments, Gundy had been talking about how the mainstream media seemed to continually talk about all of the negative aspects of the pandemic, and that he was getting very fatigued from all of that coverage. He then said that he stumbled upon a new news network (called OAN) and that he appreciated that they were not left or right. They stuck to the facts of the issue and even reported some positive things (like the number of people who had recovered from bouts with the Coronavirus) He said that they were right down the middle on that. He did not say they were exclusively a network that was right down the middle (because, in terms of commentary, they are clearly not). Read his comments below:
That said, OAN does tend to emphasize the “straight news reporting” that much of the mainstream media, on both sides of the aisle, tend to forget about. In an interview done with Wheeler, she addressed the format of OAN, and how there are merely three hours of commentary, versus 21 hours of straight news.
Mistake 3:
Bayless revealed his ultimate bias by referring to the mere fact that Gundy has spoken positively of President Trump in the past as a reason his job (or at least the support of his locker room) should be in jeopardy. According to Bayless, since Gundy could support something so unthinkable in the past, the school should have been seen it as a red flag long ago.
Mistake 4:
Finally, Bayless said, “I love what Chuba Hubbard said. I loved his scathing tweets. Every word that he wrote dripped with outrage, because he should have been outraged.”
He went on to say that Hubbard should have never apologized to Coach Gundy, even though the apology that was offered was simple: I should not have tweeted it out first. I should have come to you man-to-man about it.
Bayless is just one of many throughout the world of sports that are promoting cancel-culture and glorifying outrage over conversation and healthy solutions.
No wonder OAN sold-out of t-shirts the same day that all of this came to pass in the media.
