Jemele apologizes

[Herbert Anchovy]

Bad, boring, childish column.

 

[outofplace]

So she's a black woman from Detroit ... so what? Go back to the FreePress then. Otherwise, write a national column that someone outside of Motown might care about.

Agreed, but she isn't the only one to write that type of column for Page 2. It is a valid criticism, but I blame ESPN for allowing such homerish crap on Page 2.

It really is a weak column to begin with. The more I think about the Hitler reference, the more it bothers me.

 

[slappy4428]

Why was she not fired for this?

Because she can do whatever she wants

 

[outofplace]

I find it fascinating that a columnist who made a major issue of LeBron's Vogue cover--racist image of monstrous black athlete, King Kong to Gisele's Fay Wray-- would then use a Hilter reference to make a not-so-clever and really pointless 'joke.'

I've seen her a few times lately on that First Take show (former Cold Pizza), she is really good on TV....better than she is in print. I would not be surprised if that's where she ends up, ala Rachel N.

Excellent point regarding the Vogue cover, 21.

Has Hill stopped posting here? If not, I would love to hear her response to that.

 

[goalmouth]

It shows how little attention ESPN is paying to the written word. Hill has shown on several occasions her immaturity and lack of perspective. If she's being groomed for the idiot box, than be done with it.

Alas, I think we'll be seeing more Hitler references from young people who think the Third Reich came from driving directions on Babelfish.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

Still believe certain Hitler references are legit. Never forget, and all that. The ******* should not be unilaterally excluded from all public discourse. That's ridiculous.

But it takes judgment, brains and maturity to play the cards correctly.

 

[forever_town]

Pat Riley said 20 years ago that the Celtics were the Klingons of the NBA.

Better to leave these comparisons with fake villains, if possible.

If the Celtics were the Klingons of the NBA, does that make the Spurs the Borg?

 

[shockey]

i, too, understand that jemele has supporters on this board. that said, she sucks and has a huge forum for only two reasons, imo: the color of her skin and gender.

might she find a mature voice some day? sure, it's possible. back in the day, the late mike mcalary was a too-young sports hack at the n.y. daily news. he lost his job when the afternoon news bit the dust after a year, went to upstate new york and returned to n.y. a couple of years later a totally rinvented writer. he eventually became an award-winning news columnist.

but learning at such a high-profile position is tough, 'cause there's little motivation to work at improving. jemele's already a star doing the hackjob she's doing, so why bother?

 

[WaylonJennings]

i, too, understand that jamele has supporters on this board. that said, she sucks and has a huge forum for only two reasons, imo: the color of her skin and gender.

Yes, because everybody knows that black women have the world handed to them on a platter.

I'm sure talent and potential also have something to do with it. ESPN didn't just hire some random sistah from the streets.

 

[Boobie Miles]

I realize Jemele has a lot of defenders on this board but I believe this illustrates the fact that she's too inexperienced to be at such a major outlet. This terrible lack of judgment was made by someone compelled to write about a series SHE IS COVERING but couldn't come up with something better than this. Yech.

I agree with this and many of the other posts in this thread.

This brings to mind a Seinfeld line when a character (Whatley the dentist, I believe) coverts to Judaism and starts making hacky Jewish jokes. Jerry says he's not offended as a Jew, but as a comic.
Reading that comparison, I'm not offended as a human being, but as a writer. That's just lazy, unimaginative writing.

 

[Boobie Miles]

And what's up with the ESPN editors? I know mistakes are going to get through, but how does this get posted? And as for mistakes, I noticed three glaring errors in the only two stories I read on the site today, at one point in a Tim Keown column he's comparing Jordan and Bryant and when he's clearly writing a paragraph about Bryant he puts Jordan name in its place. And in Simmons' column he talks about the C's 24-point comeback win in Game 5 which of course came in Game 4 and another point there was just a glaring grammatical error, I think the word "are" was there in a place where it should have said "is."

That may be a bit nit-picky, but it's still not a very good day.

Edit: all three have since been fixed. Maybe it would be wise to proof-read the stories before posting them for the wold to see though.

 

[forever_town]

Edit: all three have since been fixed. Maybe it would be wise to proof-read the stories before posting them for the wold to see though.

Not to mention the world.

 

[Alma]

One of the worst things you could do to this budding columnist is to expose her to Crossfire-style debates with Skip Bayless, or anyone, for that matter. Why are they cultivating her by having her square off against that egomaniac? Bathing in that kind of hyperbole and manufactured discourse dulls a journalist's ability to know when and how to write a strong opinion.

 

[Ace]

Edit: all three have since been fixed. Maybe it would be wise to proof-read the stories before posting them for the wold to see though.

Not to mention the world.

You don't know the wold's. Very persnickety.

 

[shockey]

i, too, understand that jemele has supporters on this board. that said, she sucks and has a huge forum for only two reasons, imo: the color of her skin and gender.

Yes, because everybody knows that black women have the world handed to them on a platter.

I'm sure talent and potential also have something to do with it. ESPN didn't just hire some random sistah from the streets.

no, black women certainly have NOT had things handed to them on a platter. but i know damn well if you're a black woman today with an interest in sportswriting, your path to the top is paved with gold compared with other young people. i understand why that is and applaud newspapers and internet sites looking out for talented minorities.

however, mistakes are made in the interests of appearing p.c. my opinion: if jemele is the best african-american sports columnist in america, well, that's a darn shame.

 

[Starman]

You don't know the wold's. Very persnickety.

I am the morning deejay, at ...

:o :o :o :o


FWIW, the Celtics were certainly well known in the 1980s for packing the roster with marginal white gumps. Bird and McHale of course were All-Pros, but it seemed every year they would pick up two or three more washed-up white stiffs to stick on the end of the bench.

 

[forever_town]

however, mistakes are made in the interests of appearing p.c. my opinion: if jamele is the best african-american sports columnist in america, well, that's a darn shame.

Michael Wilbon among others would take exception to that.

 

[JayFarrar]

To be honest, I don't read Jemele regularly and I don't have much to say on her.
The examples of her posted work here have all been uniformly bad.
I have a limited amount of time to read random things and Jemele doesn't make the cut. Espn.com doesn't either.
If you think she sucks, don't click, someone will notice sooner or rater that nobody is reading and a decision will be made then.
I won't click on her column now, because I don't think it deserves the page view, unique visitor, unique IP address or however the hell ESPN counts.
I swear to God, if as many people who ***** about ESPN, quit watching or reading, then it would go away.
The one exception being my man Jones, who at last report was going to be doing some work for them, but I haven't seen anything yet.

 

[forever_town]

The one exception being my man Jones, who at last report was going to be doing some work for them, but I haven't seen anything yet.

If Jones starts writing for ESPN, I'm subscribing.

 

[shockey]

however, mistakes are made in the interests of appearing p.c. my opinion: if jemele is the best african-american sports columnist in america, well, that's a darn shame.

Michael Wilbon among others would take exception to that.

my apologies to good buds like mike wilbon. i misspoke. meant to say "the best african-american columnist ESPN could find."

carry on.