Curt Schilling took his suspension from ESPN last week for a tweet that compared the number of Muslim extremists to the number of German extremists in Nazi Germany. However, he’s not taking it lying down
With the Little League World Series that Schilling was supposed to help broadcast in the rear view mirror, Schilling slammed the sports media for their “coverage” of the incident in an e-mail sent to Dan Levy at the sports/sports media coverage site Awful Announcing which had posted several articles related to Schilling’s suspension.
According to USA Today, here is what Schilling had to say:
I don’t have a racist bone in my body, never have. Anyone that knows me even a little knows that.
Yet you, like so many others, continue to destroy what’s left of the publics trust and confidence in media by creating a story of your own design and liking when you didn’t need to, and smearing someone’s reputation to do it. Any thought at all as to my children and their thoughts if they read the lie you created? That’s an honest question. I dealt with it in my home, but I always wonder when people of your ilk give ruining someone a shot, if you ever do think about the family you impact. Especially when you are creating a story that never happened to do it.
And for what it is worth I apologized for tweeting.
The USA Today piece continued:
“In Schilling’s email to Levy, however, he wrote that he refuses to “apologize for the content of the tweet.” Schilling contends that he was comparing “radical” Muslims to Nazis, not “peace-loving” Muslims.
The forum was about as poor a choice as I could have made in trying to elicit a potential discussion on that topic. I did not, and will not apologize for the content of the tweet. If you, or anyone else, can’t wrap your head around your native language enough to understand that omitting words, or adding them, is plain and simple lying when it comes to journalism.
Also, according to the article, an ESPN spokesman told USA Today that they “weren’t aware of Curt’s plan to craft or send this email.”
Yes, obviously. Because if Schilling had told the Bristol-based sports giant of his plans to defend himself from activist journalists using common sense, something ESPN should have done for him as opposed to suspending him, they would have shut him down and refused to allow him to do it.
So, Schilling’s troubles with his employer may be just beginning instead of ending. But of course, Schilling had to know this e-mail would be made public before sending it, which only makes his passionate defense of it all the more awesome.
