A couple of years ago while at an event I was pulled aside by a black female journalist, who I knew professionally, and always had been a supporter of the site.
We had written a “Twitter Reacts” post (something we did well before it became popular to do by mainstream media) on FOX sideline reporter Pam Oliver’s hair. It wasn’t written maliciously. We didn’t say anything negative; just included the tweets from Twitter, which I must admit in retrospect were harsh in nature.
We didn’t do anything wrong. Oliver is a public figure, and it was a story. However, the journalist who pulled me aside simply reminded me that everything I do doesn’t just have an effect on that person, but everyone else like that person. Then, she proceeded to show me some of the vile, disrespectful, racist, sexist, prejudice and downright evil things that were being said about Oliver and herself. It wasn’t so much she was chastising me but opening my eyes to things I didn’t see.
At the time I saw things from a black male in media perspective, because that is what I had to fight through to make a name for myself. I never looked at it from a black female, or any female to be honest, media perspective; what they must have to through.
As the person mentioned to me, so many people like to talk about Pam’s hair but not the fact she does her job better than Erin Andrews. Look at all the opportunities Andrews has been given.
The message was received. It wasn’t so much stop doing what you are doing but to think about what you are doing before you do it.
My uncle, who was keen on giving life lesson advice, said I should always hold the door for people, and I asked why. His answer was this.
“You aren’t holding the door to make yourself look good, but to make it easier for the next 10 black men that person comes in contact.”
He often said that as black person when you walk out the door, you are down 14-0 in society and not to do anything to increase the deficit (quote I have hanging up in my man cave).
I try to live by those words and listen to people who have been in this business far longer than me. I have bills to pay and a daughter who rapidly growing. So, it is always a balance between let’s talk about Victor Cruz’s sidechicks and trying to point out the hypocrisy with Ronda Rousey.
I do my best. I learned you can’t please everyone, just be yourself and try to help other as best you can in an industry that is 90% white and 90% male.
Jason Whitlock wondered aloud if people and blogs were scared to speak on his issues with Gawker, Deadspin and Greg Howard. He feels like they are bullies who will infiltrate your personal life and try to expose you if you dare say anything negative about them.
Personally, I have never been one afraid to speak my mind, because everyone already knows my story. They know about the repoed cars, the getting kicked out of apartments, the bad debt, the homelessness and being probably a step away from being an utter and complete failure. I don’t talk about that stuff daily. No one wants to be depressed, but I try to mention it enough to let people know: if I can dig myself out of a hole, so can you.
So, it wasn’t fear of Deadspin that caused me not to tweet or discuss the situation, because trust me people have reached out to me for weeks. It was more reflection on the situation that I don’t think has that big of effect on either Howard or Whitlock’s career, but how we as black journalists are perceived.
When Whitlock was put in charge of the “Black Grantland” project which turned into The Undefeated, people were skeptical.
The thing about Bill Simmons is hate him or love him, he has a passionate fan base. He is like John Cena, even if you don’t like him, you find yourself still attach to him. You can say the same for someone like Skip Bayless or Stephen A. Smith. When you are building a brand, you want the head of that organization to bring that type of passionate supporters and detractors to the table.
Whitlock has been a journalist for many years and successful on many levels, but he never really crossed over. He is probably going to hate this, but, when he needed to be Jay Z, he was Beanie Sigel. He was more Meek Mill than Drake, and for a project as big and important as this was, you needed a Jay Z, a Drake or a Beyonce.
My issues with Whitlock have never been personal, just disagreements on some of his stories and our views on journalism. I have always been in an adapt or perish mindstate when it comes to journalism. You do what you have to do to survive. I am comfortable asking questions to LeBron or writing about the Kardashians, whatever needs to be done to keep the lights on. Whitlock is a traditionalist, his values in journalism are rooted in how he was taught by people he respected in the industry. A lot of people don’t like the way he views things, and maybe that is his lane to push people. However, it is a lane he has been in for a long time.
Regardless of my reservations about if Whitlock was the best person for the project, the project itself I thought was supremely important for minorities getting more opportunities in media. With ESPN backing, I hoped that a lot of YOUNG minority journalists would get an opportunity on the big stage to showcase their talents, similar to how Bill Simmons gave a lot of young journalists their opportunity.
This brings us to Greg Howard. The first time I ever heard Howard’s name was when he did a very detailed account of every black quarterback in the NFL. A couple of things stood out, even though I think term black quarterback isn’t needed anymore (for full transparency, if I was starting a site today, I don’t think Black Sports Online, would be needed either, but in 2005 it was a different case), it was obvious that Howard put a lot of thought, time and painstaking details into putting the article together. Also I remember thinking he was one of the few black guys I ever seen working for Deadspin. I thought, “good for him,” and then for a couple of months nothing was going on.
Whitlock I assumed was working on The Undefeated, and Howard was continuing his work on Deadspin.
The next time I heard about Greg Howard he was dropping a 10,000 word article on Deadspin destroying Whitlock.
Can Jason Whitlock Save ESPN’s “Black Grantland” From Himself?
The crux of the article written in June 2014 was that Whitlock was submarining his own project because of his ego. It detailed how Howard, who was enthusiastic initially about coming aboard, was cast aside because Whitlock didn’t like something that was written about him in the Black QB article. It spoke to Whitlock’s paranoia and how he has burned so many bridges that many of the writers he had in mind for the project didn’t want to work for him.
I had an issue with the article. The Whitlock parts wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before. Plus it just confirmed many people’s fears that Whitlock wasn’t the right man for the job.
My issue with the article is that it was 10,000 words about blacks in online media and didn’t include BSO. Regardless of if you like us or not, you can’t ignore (well I guess you can) our influence in the genre of online media, even Whitlock begrudgingly admits that.
I exchanged emails with Howard and Tommy Craggs who was the head of Deadspin at the time and the answer I got was simply: we were in it, then were taken out. No reason given beyond editorial decisions.
It is something that Howard and Whitlock have in common, not much respect for the work we put in at BSO. So, if they ever do bury the hatchet, that is something they can agree upon.
Howard and I got into a brief Twitter argument, which honestly I forgot how it started (like most twitter arguments), but one I immediately regretted. The regret wasn’t because of anything I said, I’ve never deleted a tweet in my life. The reason for the regret will become clear as we finished this piece because of something that ironically Howard wrote about.
After Howard’s initial piece on Whitlock, things appeared to be going better for the project. It was finally given a name “The Undefeated.” It had a launch date. Whitlock hired some people and posted some articles.
At that moment, I knew “The Undefeated” wasn’t going to be about giving young minority journalists an opportunity to shine, but more of the same old, established journalists speaking on the same topics of race and culture like they always do.
I have nothing against Mike Wise formerly of the Washington Post, but if someone tells me they are starting a fresh and unique sports website on race and culture, he would not come to mind for an initial hire.
Whitlock is big on saying he wanted to run The Undefeated like a football team with him being the coach/GM. You know what type of teams fail in the NFL? Ones that sign old free agents to big money contracts. That is what Whitlock was doing. He wasn’t thinking outside the box. He wanted to stay inside his box.
But……….
I still supported the project publicly, this was bigger than Whitlock. It needed to get off the ground because it wasn’t a good look for it to be lagging when other ESPN vanity sites were up and running.
Time went on and nothing really happened when Greg Howard again dropped the hammer on Whitlock in April of 2015.
How Jason Whitlock Is Poisoning ESPN’s “Black Grantland”
The first piece Howard wrote on Whitlock seemed more personal, more like Howard wanted to get some things off his chest.
This piece was an assassination aimed not just at killing The Undefeated, but Whitlock’s career. I have no idea why Howard wanted to do this. Maybe it was because of what happened before, or maybe because information was just fed to him in such a way he felt he had no choice but to expose it.
The first thing that stood out to me was the amount of inside information Howard had from people within in ESPN; emails, recordings and the infamous Whitlock playbook. The leaks were enormous, and I can understand if you felt someone had did you wrong, you would be tempted to end them with all this information.
With that being said, I wish Howard would have trashed it all.
I explained why in a piece I wrote shortly after Howard wrote his. Here is just a portion what I had to say, but feel free to read the whole thing.
At this point, much of what we are hearing about the project is negative, we desperately need some positive, before that negative spreads like a disease and affects people who aren’t as secure in his position as Whitlock.
“When a white person fails, it is ok because society is set up to give him or her another chance, if a black person gets a golden opportunity & fails, he or she won’t get it again.”
I know this isn’t always true, but the premise is valid that as a black person in society you don’t have many chances to FAIL before they turn on you and eventually kick you out. I don’t like to see any anyone fail. Just because I am indifferent to Whitlock and disagree with some of his philosophies doesn’t mean I want him to fail, because if he fails it has a trickle down effect on all of us.
Someone said to me yesterday, I must be happy that Whitlock’s project is not going smoothly, since less competition in the space, but my brain doesn’t operate like that. I don’t get joy in someone’s else pain, even if they brought it on themselves. Also I think it is a HUGE problem in the black community that we actively root for people to fail. This isn’t so much about wanting Whitlock to succeed, but the project to succeed. Maybe Whitlock wasn’t the best person to QB but the team, but if you drafted Matthew Stafford you have to make the best of it unless you ready to get a better QB. I hope Whitlock doesn’t just dismiss the Howard piece, sometimes you need something like this to force you to take a long look in the mirror. Because it is less about Howard and more about people in Whitlock’s inner circle so frustrated with him they freely gave the information to Howard. It was like an intervention, so if that doesn’t change Whitlock’s thinking nothing will.
Look at this quote from FOX Sports Katie Nolan on her audition with Fox Sports:
“They flew me out to L.A. for an audition, which I bombed. I had never read off a teleprompter, and I didn’t know I needed glasses. They told me I bombed it too. But they still wanted me. I had another screen test that went a little better. And then they told me they wanted to put me on a show with Regis Philbin. [Crowd Goes Wild, which ran from August 2013 until it was canceled last May.] I was like, What the f—? He’s still doing TV? I Googled him and found out he was 82. My grandmother is 82, and some days she doesn’t even put her teeth in.”
She readily admits she was terrible, but it didn’t matter. She got an opportunity. Now, can I say with 100% certainty if she was a black woman under that same scenario she wouldn’t get an opportunity? No, I can’t say that, but what I can say is it is HIGHLY unlikely a minority in media would have.
It is highly unlikely Bill Simmons wouldn’t have tried to execute a trade for her from Fox Sports.
It is highly unlikely, after several of her original projects didn’t catch on or were canceled, she would be given a TV show.
It is highly unlikely that she would be allowed to curse, be critical of her own employers and pretty much say whatever she wants.
This isn’t a knock on Nolan. If I was giving all these opportunities and attention, I would embrace it as well.
But, why doesn’t someone as talented like Rosalyn Gold-Onwude get as much attention?
I pay attention to what goes in media at a far deeper level than your average person. Just like in life, it isn’t that minorities want to be treated special or have things handed to us, we just want to be treated fairly and equally.
I would like to see people like Jemele Hill and Michael Smith get credit not just for making “His and Hers” a success, but making it a success essentially on their own. They never had the support of a 1st Take or a Colin Cowherd (when he was at ESPN), they ran into more hurdles and resistance than Lolo Jones. They had to be twice as good as their counterparts before people started to buy in. Even now when the success of their show is primarily because of their hard work, people still want to give 1st Take credit as the led in for it. It is that type of inequality that is frustrating and why a project like The Undefeated was important.
My naïve hope was that Howard’s piece would at least get Whitlock to open his eyes to the fact that if so many people are betraying him, that has to say something about him.
I also hoped that Howard’s piece wouldn’t DOOM the project, because while Howard’s target was Whitlock, there would always be collateral damage.
Both of the things I HOPED for never happened. Whitlock isn’t changing, ESPN made him step down, bought him out and then he popped up with Fox Sports and Tumblr page calling Howard among other things a Token Black Hipster Mascot and Tweeting about Howard’s criminal record. Whitlock without actually saying it is calling Howard a “cornball brother”.
Whitlock included emails from Howard and the serious claim that Howard’s editors included a nigger reference in his post calling Whitlock an Uncle Tom.
Howard in turn went to his personal page blasted Whitlock again calling him a lonely sad figure.
As I am watching all this unfold, two things came to mind. The first thing is both Howard and Whitlock are going to fine.
Whitlock has survived this long, he getting a show on FS1. They seem to like him at Fox Sports, and he’s been paid very well over the past couple of years for a project that hasn’t been launch.
Howard ironically because of Whitlock is now known as one of the best and brightest young African-American writers out there. He has become what I believe at least what Whitlock hoped he would become if he came over to the Undefeated. He is just doing for Deadspin, by taking Whitlock down.
The second thing and I think the most important thing I noticed was how the beef was being perceived within media.
It took me back to my brief Twitter beef with Howard. I was taking up for my brand and my staff. I saw it as a conversation between myself and Howard. Until someone very high up food chain in media text me and simply said: “You are perpetuating the stereotypes they already think about you, you are being entertainment for white people”.
I immediately stopped. Nothing good was going to come from me continuing on. I am proud of what I’ve accomplished, never have a need to defend myself. While I have had small disagreements with media people both black and white since that time. I have always kept things levelheaded. I am not here to perpetuate stereotypes.
So, as I am watching Whitlock and Howard go at it, I notice the glee at which many other media members in the industry are taking in it. They are mostly all white, all male. This is the same industry we minorities are fighting to get into, so it doesn’t help we are fighting ourselves no matter HOW much we dislike each other.
Goes all the way back to the Pam Oliver thing. When you have as big of a voice as a Jason Whitlock or a Greg Howard, everything you do has a trickle down effect.
Because now what we have is the ONE urban site that ESPN has invested in hasn’t gotten off the ground in almost 3 years.
Two intelligent talented black journalists have bickered and calling each other names for almost the same length of time. The opportunities could have been have been lost forever.
I spoke to a network executive and asked why they haven’t tried an urban site and their exact answer was: “We don’t want a Whitlock situation.”
I think Greg Howard’s focus was simply to expose Whitlock for things we have heard about Whitlock for many years, and he did an excellent job doing that. However, by doing so he ended up doing the exact thing he said was the reason that Whitlock became popular in the first place.
So, in the end white people were entertained, The Undefeated at some point may launch, but with the issues with Grantland & The 538, who knows? Greg Howard became a known name, Whitlock like a cat used up another one of his 9 lives, BSO will continue rolling on and everyone moves on with their life.
Unfortunately, we will never know the irreparable damage that has been caused by Howard and Whitlock’s inability to simply realize the power they had to change how minorities are viewed in journalism was bigger than their hate for each other.
And that is sad.
