Paging Sage Steele ... Ms. Steele, please call your office.
ESPN further showed their political leanings and bias on Sunday by not holding an employee accountable for her political messaging.
Show host Mina Kimes posted a photo of her standing next to Karen Bass (D), who is running for mayor of Los Angeles, on her Instagram story. Kimes advocated for Bass by writing she has a much more beneficial tax policy for the city than her Republican opponent, Rick Caruso.
Now obviously, Kimes can explain her political views on her personal account away from the company's oversight. But this is a problem because ESPN punished another employee for doing something similar for voicing her conservative viewpoints.
Sage Steele went on a podcast last year and voiced her conservative takes on the Uncut With Jay Cutler podcast about ESPN's vaccine mandate and a few other issues. Nothing that Steele did was associated with ESPN, but the big difference between what Steele said and what Kimes said, is that Bass leans towards supporting a progressive agenda and values, while Steele was silenced for having conservative-leaning takes. Steel is now suing ESPN.
Sounds to me like that’s a violation of the company’s so-called “no politics policy,” but ESPN has not commented on their plan of action to hold Kimes accountable.
But it’s not the only time that ESPN has let its employees get away for woke takes and perspectives. Consider this from Jalen Rose in 2021:
Hey @JalenRose Jacob Blake is still alive, not dead. And he was shot by police because he had a knife, refused to drop it, and a woman he’d sexually assaulted called police asking for protection. This is embarrassing @espn. pic.twitter.com/9ykTEq88tn
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) November 20, 2021
Or this from JA Adande in February:
Oh my. @ESPN just promoted the video of this idiot comparing the CCP committing genocide, slave labor, forced abortions and forced sterilizations to red states requiring voter ID.https://t.co/sxxnerYanb
— Bobby Burack (@burackbobby_) February 4, 2022
Neither of these men were reprimanded for being political on air, and Adande’s segment was published on Twitter.
So when ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro said in 2018 that ESPN was not a political organization, did he mean that ESPN was only not political if someone says something conservative friendly?
The evidence shows that’s the case.
