ethnic pussies

here's a relatively typical case in which the exquisitely delicate ethnic sensitivities of the press preclude them from actually reporting the story: espn fired a staffer for an 'offensive' headline: we report the story at length, but can't actually say what the headline said. that's frigging ridiculous. we'd do our basic jobs, only we're pussies. the headline itself was only up for a half hour, and for example reading this account would make it impossible to reach an informed opinion on whether the firing was reasonable. you don't want to offend your readers, who are not at all offended for example when you report the actual facts of a murder in excruciating detail. well, lord knows this - whatever it was - was worse than murder.

Comments

[BenSix]

What the media does and doesn't find offensive would be an intriguing subject for a book. A recent classic was, of course, the blurring of the penises in the reporting of the soldiers who'd pissed on dead Afghans. Another favourite of mine was when a footballer was censured for displaying his middle finger and they actually obscured the offending digit. God knows what the consequences of seeing a raised digitus medius would have been.

[Andrew Dobbs]

FYI, it had to do with a story RE: Lin and the headline said "A Chink in the Armor."

[Lisa Simeone]

Political correctness is ever rearing its crazed head.

And this is nothing, Crispin. I had a friend (past-tense) who was chastised once at a business conference because she used a flip-chart in her presentation -- and referred to it as a -- duh -- "flip-chart." Some moron came up to her and told her it was a slur on Filipinos. She apologized profusely.

No, I'm not making this up.

But it gets worse.

When I scoffed and asked if she was also going to banish "flip-flops," "flip" short for "flippant," "flipping" polite for "fucking," and a whole host of other similar words from her vocabulary, she rained a torrent of sanctimonious sermonizing down on me.

So I came up with a list. Can't use "guinea pig" anymore, I guess. Can't use "chink in your armor" (unrelated to the ESPN account). Can't use "there's a nip in the air." Can't use "Guinea hen," "Guinea fowl," or even, by this logic, "New Guinea." Or how about "flipped his lid"? Maybe Flipper should be renamed Harry?

Anyway, can't remember them all.

[crispy]

that 'flip' thing is amazing, lisa.

[Rik Little]

Oriental baskball player leaves you hungry in an hour.