Leftward Leaning: Politicizing The Sports Press Box

The first rule of sports reporting is “no cheering in the press box”. Leave your partisan opinion at home. For the most part, the rule has been observed by the media covering sports during games. 

But now, in this era of racial grievance theory, 32 genders, climate oblivion and Trump, sports media are, increasingly, cheerleading for the their favourite causes after the games end. They will not, as you can imagine, be going sis-boom-bah for Donald Trump or Stephen Harper.

In the U.S. the descent of major sports reporters and their networks to an active arm of the progressive movement is pervasive. There are days where ESPN’s reporting sounds more like corrective seminar on white entitlement than a news item. Sports, always an escape from reality, has been to turned into a re-education camp for viewers.

Some of this can be traced to ESPN awarding its Arthur Ashe Courage Award to Caitlyn Jenner in 2015. There was some dispute over awarding the prize to a 50-something trans athlete over current competitors. But parent company Disney kept its network’s eyes focussed on the prize of diversity enforcement. Now, a daily sampling of opinion on ESPN means a shower of the latest talking points on race, gender and oppression. (As evidence, Disney has signed a production agreement with political firebrand Colin Kaepernick.)

Case in point: the deafening media silence after the stars of the NBA, crying racism in America,  grovelled to the Chinese politburo when it appeared their running-shoe millions would be lost. Let’s count the LeBron Is A Hypocrite takes on sports talk in the USA. We’ll save you time. No one outside Jason Whitlock, now with Outkick, went there.

When U.S, senator Josh Hawley (Missouri- R) asked how the league squared putting political statements about race and gender on team jerseys while refusing to address the Chinese running-shoe hypocrisy, ESPN’s top reporter on the league, Adrian Wojnarowski, made it clear on his network Twitter account where his sentiments lie. “Fuck you”, Wojnarowski replied to Hawley in defence of the NBA. (He’s since apologized.)

ESPN said it would speak with Wojnarowski about the email, and that “the specifics of those conversations will remain internal.” Ooh, that’s a strong message. Imagine how long any conservative journalist would last at a network after telling Kamala Harris to FU on a political issue. While half of America voted for the GOP there is almost no national sports network figure with a conservative voice in America. In Canada. I count just four public conservatives, including myself, that I know of— none with a national pulpit. 

Naturally his liberal colleagues rushed to the defence of “Woj” for his boldness and truth telling. Jemele Hill said “Got your back, brother”. Someone called Alex Reimer at Forbes, describing Wojnarowsi as “the venerated NBA Insider”,  tried to turn it back on Hawley, saying “The network caved to its disingenuous distractors.” Please.

But burying the lede on their political fellow travellers in common. This past week, former NBA star and now TV analyst Charles Barkley chided NFL star DeSean Jackson and NBA veteran Stephen Jackson for anti-semitic comments— even as they promote the #BLM version of racial tolerance. Barkley was one of very few media figures who did this, however. 

Mainstream media largely seemingly agreed with NFL DB Malcom Jenkins who called the story not his “business”  and “a distraction” from the real work of #BLM grievance promotion. Curious. Or maybe not.

These same social justice warriors in media savaged white QB Drew Brees when he said he disagreed with kneeling for the national anthem. ESPN’s chattering class quickly implied that white privilege was at play. Such was the blowback from media pounding the #BLM agenda that Brees was forced to abjectly bow before them in apology. 

Then we have the removal of the nickname Redskins for Washington’s NFL team and Eskimos from Edmonton’s CFL team. Polling clearly demonstrated that the ones most interested in this cleansing were white media liberals like Bob Costas and everyone at ESPN. You heard nothing of polling that showed just a fraction of the public wanted a change. Only the activists of political theatre were allowed an opinion.

So what’s happened? Since some writers championed Jackie Robinson breaking the MLB colour bar there’s been a growing conviction among sports reporters that they’re pure-at-heart agents of justice. Now the most woke voices see themselves as beyond criticism. For the branch of journalism long considered frivolous, the yearning to be taken seriously by your peers is palpable. (Laughably they think their politics is still cutting edge, not approved policy.)

(The work I did with others on cleaning up the NHL Alan Eagleson/ John Ziegler/ Bill Wirtz cesspool was deeply gratifying. Unlike others, I didn’t believe it bestows permanent immunity on my work.)

There are a few possible reasons for this. As I’ve mentioned previously , the curmudgeons I met when I entered the biz 40 years ago would rather cover cricket than hop on a trendy political or cultural bandwagon. Largely, they thought for themselves. Today’s younger sports media personalities are typically churned out in sports communications courses at Syracuse, Northwestern, Texas and other educational hotbeds of radical thought.

The homogeneity of their backgrounds has led to stultifying groupthink. They believe that if they break too far from the pack they’ll be permanently isolated by the athletes they cover. Or out of a job.

Second, as it has in many fields, the introduction of women and BIPOC to the talent pool has also resulted in more liberal attitudes creeping into coverage. Go ahead, name one conservative woman in sports reporting. I’ve got all day. As well, young white reporters covering leagues with predominantly black players (NFL, NBA) have encountered the political cultures— highly Democratic and racial— of the players they cover. This results in sympathetic coverage on stories such as the Kaepernick kneeling affair. Call it opinion by osmosis.

I should add that, outside a few devoted apostles in places like the Toronto Star, Canadian media have not become as indoctrinated in WokeThink as their American cousins. It’s possible to turn on a sports show and see actual sports. While many reporters in Canada openly cheered the denouement of Don Cherry’s redneck routine, TSN and Sportsnet do not typically promote their stars gargling the politics of the internet mob. (I would point to TSN’s Rick Westhead as one still doing a terrific job of unbiased critical reporting.)

There’s safety in numbers. So don’t expect a change anytime soon, especially if Joe Biden wins the presidency. Postscript: In a kicker about sports media bias that needs little comment: Bob Costas has joined CNN as a sports commentator. Birds of a feather…

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand is also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his next book Personal Account with Tony Comper will be available on BruceDowbigginBooks.ca this fall.