On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 5:59 AM, 'Greg Diener' via TVorNotTV < [email protected]> wrote:
> ESPN released a statement about the controversy which translates to "WATCH > FIRST TAKE ON MONDAY TO HEAR WHAT STEPHEN A. SMITH HAS TO SAY!" > > > http://awfulannouncing.com/2014/espn-offers-first-remarks-on-stephen-a-smith-controversy.html > > I despise Bristol HQ even more than I already do after reading that. > Right. But there is even more chickenshittery going on than that. Not only were they pimping First Take's ratings with the controversy, they were also I think wanting to wait and see if Smith's comments could solve the problem before they committed themselves one way or the other. What they did was have Smith read a pre-recorded humble apology (with yet more references to all the women he grew up with, because he still apparently believes having a mother, grandmother, sisters and aunties makes him uniquely sensitive to the issues of domestic violence). Cari Champion then made a few comments (believe Stephen A when he apologizes, the NFL blew it with the 2 game suspension, she blew it for not calling out Stephen A at the time on Friday). Basic point from both: We made a mistake by not communicating clearly enough. They then awkwardly cut to the regular start of the show, which addressed the pressing issue from the weekend.....Lebron James changing his uniform number. I was not able to watch the entire two hours, but I saw all of the first 30 minutes, and much of the rest, and I did not see them talk about the NFL's 2-game suspension of Rice at all - even though Mike and Mike made some news earlier in the morning with an interview of NFL's senior vice president of labor policy Adolpho Birch, who was basically incoherent on the Rice suspension. To be fair, maybe First Take did address this while I was out of the room. Smith still has not communicated clearly. If he thinks the word "provocation" was a poor choice, then what was he actually trying to say? Almost certainly what he was trying to say was that word from Rice's camp is that his girlfriend was drunk and had been threatening and even hitting him, and that if true Smith thinks that should be seen as some kind of mitigating factor for Rice's behavior. If that is what he meant (and again, I think it almost certainly is) then I think "provocation" was the proper word for him to use. Smith is not a good communicator, but that is not his core problem; his core problem is his view that there is anything a woman (or, really, even a man, if you read what Rice actually did) could do that would provoke or even mitigate to any degree that kind of abuse. ESPN is suffering from Smith's entire false persona of being some kind of hyper-articulate communicator. He uses four words where one would suffice, and more often than not two of the extra ones are partially or totally incorrect. In this case I am shocked that the word that got him into his biggest can of worms actually correctly expressed what he was trying to say. Though I guess Smith and ESPN are also benefitting from the fact that Smith is such a chronically unclear selector of words that it is plausible on its face that he made a wrong word choice here. -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
