ESPN Striking Out at Transparency in Jemele Hill Suspension
[By Thom Fladung/Hennes Communications]
In the years I was helping run newsrooms, one of my least favorite experiences was being in the news.
Odd sounding, I know, in that I spent 33 years putting people, businesses and other organizations in the news. Hypocritical? Perhaps. Almost always, though, if one of my newspapers was in the news it wasn’t good news. It was a staff cut, through layoffs or buyouts, or an alleged ethical breach or a fight with a politician that went public.
It was always sobering. It affected how I approached stories about others. And I always reminded myself that, as a news organization, I thought there was a special, higher calling to be as transparent as possible when the story was about you.
ESPN finds itself squarely in the news these days, after suspending SportsCenter anchor Jemele Hill recently for a series of tweets. I’m sure it’s not the best of days in Bristol, Conn., and I empathize with that. I’m also sure that ESPN is failing the transparency test.
Jim Brady, ESPN’s public editor, delves into that issue and much more in detail in his column on the controversy.
Beyond the high-profile nature of all of this – the cable sports behemoth, a prominent sports journalist, the Dallas Cowboys and the president of the United States are all caught up in it, for goodness’ sakes – there also are lessons here for non-media businesses that struggle with personnel issues, privacy and what to say amid the crisis.
As Brady points out, ESPN’s reasoning for suspending Hill for two weeks is so general as to be nearly meaningless: “All employees were reminded of how individual tweets may reflect negatively on ESPN and that such actions would have consequences.”
Brady writes: “It’s a generality in which specificity would serve everyone better. ESPN has created a guideline that’s so broad that almost any statement it chooses could be considered a violation.”
Before going further, three points of clarification:
- I worked with Jemele Hill at the Detroit Free Press. I consider her a friend and, while our contacts have been rare in recent years, I hope she considers me the same. I also consider her an extremely talented, dedicated journalist. And I’d consider myself lucky to work with her again. (For a passionate defense of Hill, see Indianapolis Star columnist Suzette Hackney’s recent column. And for another interesting view on Hill and the issues in play, see Sports Illustrated reporter Michael Rosenberg’s piece. We were all at the Free Press together.)
- Twitter is a minefield. But it’s a minefield you must learn to negotiate. Journalists have to be there. For high-profile journalists like Hill, it’s become a big part of the job. And if you’re responsible for your organization’s reputation in any way, you’d better at least be watching Twitter to see if people are talking about you and what they’re saying.
- Sports and politics have always been intertwined. Think of Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, sprinting through Adolf Hitler’s notions of racial superiority. Think of Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby integrating major league baseball. Think of John Carlos and Tommie Smith, with the raised fist salute on the victory stand at the ’68 Olympics. Think of today’s NFL players protesting during the national anthem. You can wish sports were pure escapism from the ugly real world. A more effective approach might be to find a different hobby.
In his column, Brady explores the history of this particular crisis. It starts with Hill criticizing Donald Trump and his views on race, calling him a “white supremacist” on Twitter. ESPN made clear it didn’t like that – and Hill apologized for putting her employers in a difficult position. But she wasn’t suspended. More recently, Hill took to Twitter to criticize Dallas Cowboy owner Jerry Jones for issuing an ultimatum that his players should stand for the national anthem or be benched. Hill suggested a boycott of Dallas Cowboys advertisers. And this time she got suspended.
The controversy over Jones, his players’ right to protest and what the owner really wants rages on.
ESPN, of course, has a critical business relationship with the NFL and the Cowboys. And as Brady points out, that leads to an inevitable conclusion: At ESPN, you can call the president a white supremacist and stay on the air but don’t mess with our business partners.
That may not be ESPN’s position at all. Consider, for example, some of the network’s reporting on the NFL concussion crisis. It’s highly unlikely those stories have thrilled NFL owners. But from a crisis communications standpoint, the ESPN statement on the Hill suspension does nothing to counteract that buckling to business narrative or shed any light on the network’s reasoning. If anything, it casts ESPN as a villain, and not a vindicator. That’s the worst role to have in news coverage.
Internal personnel moves should be sensitive issues. In public, you must tread with care. But recognize that erring on the side of too much caution can cause damage as well. Schools that won’t go into any detail on why the principal had to be dismissed risk parents assuming the worst – and these days that “worst” for a school can be very bad. A company that suddenly and silently jettisons a CEO risks its customers, investors, etc., similarly imagining the worst – in many cases, worse than the reality.
Talk to your attorney and your human resources expert, certainly. But go into those talks intending to tell the truth, tell it first, tell it fast and tell as much of it as you can.
Thom Fladung worked for 33 years at newspapers, including serving as managing editor of the Detroit Free Press, before joining Hennes Communications.