Sports Talk Radio

ESPN made headlines this week after making a controversial statement about New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin. Lin has taken the world by storm by his play over the past two weeks, leading the Knicks to seven victories in his eight games. Most intriguing to basketball outsiders and the media is Lin's Taiwanese heritage, despite the fact that Lin is American-born and educated. This fact didn't a number of ESPN employees from having fun with a well-known racial slur after Lin's loss to the Hornets. On ESPN Mobile, ESPN's Sportscenter and ESPN Radio, it was noted that the Knicks might have a "chink in the armor". The phrase obviously contains two connotations, neither of which are positive for Lin.

The headline writer has been fired, the ESPN anchor has been suspended but ESPN Radio remains unpunished. Why? The offender in this scenario was not an ESPN employee. How does a network properly punish an individual who is not an employee of their network? Regulating the opinions and language of guests has long been a controversial issue. How should ESPN be punished? By FCC guidelines, there was technically nothing inherently wrong with the comments.

Sports talk radio has long been the target of criticism for potentially racist comments. In 2007, Don Imus was fired from his CBS radio show after referring to the Rutger's women's basketball team as a bunch of "nappy headed hoes". The firing was a financial loss for CBS, after MSNBC pulled its simulcast of the program and many advertisers dropped their support of CBS previous to the firing. Imus later claimed he would like the opportunity to apologize to the team in person, face-to-face.

Sports talk radio allows for a bit of room for unpopular opinions that may not be politically correct. These actions are irresponsible because of the sphere of influence that many radio hosts have. On any given day, there may be hundreds of thousands of listeners that can hear these opinions. Even if the holder of the opinion considers his or her comments satirical, one or more listeners might not be able to recognize that fact and take the comments as true.



http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2003/writers/peter_king/09/30/mcnabb_limbaugh/

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/12/national/main2675273.shtml

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2012/02/espn-fires-lin-appropriate-employee-suspends-anchor-jeremy-lin-new-york-knicks-espn-radio-espnews/1#.T0Jcu3JWpVQ