It's been a couple of years since I've been exposed to much drive time radio, so it had been a while since I had regularly listened to ESPN Radio's Mike and Mike in the Morning featuring Mike Greenburg and Mike Golic. Still, even though I knew that their popularity had grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years -- including the fact that ESPN now simulcasts their show on one of the ESPN cable networks -- I was more than a little surprised to find out that the they were the honorees at a roast in Atlantic City recently.
Had they really gotten that big? Apparently so.
Now, if you've ever watched a roast, you know that these are rollicking and ribald affairs. When you step to the microphone, you are expected to insult the guest of honor with great gusto. Not only that, you are more or less expected to throw the rules of taste and propriety out of the window. And if you don't, the audience is going to let you have it.
Oh, and you better be funny. God help you if you're not funny.
After reading this account of the event from an Atlantic City newspaper*, it's clear the evening went true to form. Some folks killed, some folks got killed, and well, though initial accounts failed to mention it, some folks may very well have killed themselves.
I'm talking about ESPN talking head Dana Jacobson, who apparently stepped to the microphone, vodka bottle in hand, to pay tribute to her colleagues. Though we don't know exactly everything she said to the very last word, the enterprising folks at World Net Daily, with an assist from Bill Donahue of the Catholic League, managed to smuggle out a quote that may well wreck Jacobson's career:
Jacobson, reportedly intoxicated, was speaking at a celebrity roast in Atlantic City, N.J., when she unleashed a profane tirade, saying, "F--- Notre Dame," "F--- Touchdown Jesus" and finally "F--- Jesus."
It was then that Jacobson, followed by a chorus of boos, was forcibly removed from the stage by the master of ceremonies. Apparently, ESPN has already issued an apology in Jacobson's name that Donahue isn't satisfied with.
Even though I was raised Roman Catholic and attended Catholic University, I'm not afraid to say that Donahue and the Catholic League don't represent me. As far as I'm concerned, he's not that much different from Rev. Al Sharpton, just another blowhard with an MSM-supplied bullhorn who doesn't represent anyone but himself and a few isolated strands of a lunatic fringe.
But like it or not, we live in a time where folks, even when they're supposedly being hired to do comedy, are held to a different, and often shifting standard when it comes to what they say in public.
So yes, Jacobson was participating in a roast, where ribald humor is the order of the day. Then again, I'm sure Don Imus also thought that he was well in the clear when he uttered the three words -- "nappy headed hos" -- that drove him off the air and nearly ended his career. This, after he had spent decades trafficking in exactly the same sort of racial humor without incident.
And I'm sure that Kelly Tilghman thought she was just trying to be funny when she let loose with her comments about "lynching" Tiger Woods in an alley a couple of weeks back. After all, weren't she and Tiger friends of long standing? How could anyone possibly misinterpret what she had said?
Here's something to think about: One of the reasons that Tilghman was vilified so horribly was because she waited until there was a public outcry concerning her comments before she apologized -- a delay of a couple of days. In Jacobson's case, her comments came at an ESPN-sponsored event 12 days ago.
If a 48 hour delay was enough to convict Tilghman, what does a delay of almost two weeks tell us about Jacobson and ESPN? Even worse, this means that a number of folks inside ESPN were well aware of Jacobson's comments, even as they were rushing pieces on the air concerning the racial firestorm surrounding Tilghman, and later, Golf Week.
Yet, despite the fact that those two did nothing but exercise their simple right to free speech -- however offensive it might have been -- each had to suffer through just the sort of trial by media that we've grown accustomed to. And in each of those examples, it was ESPN that served as the grand inquisitor, alternating blanket coverage on SportsCenter with 90 second cross examinations on PTI delivered by Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon.
Now, I've gone on the record more than once that we need to get over pretending that incidents like these really matter to anyone other than television news directors looking to fill endless hours of programming. Sure, all of these comments were offensive, but so what? Last time I looked we didn't have a constitutional right not to be offended. As far as I'm concerned, we should let these folks apologize and then be done with it.
Then again when it comes to high tech lynchings in sports, I don't make the rules. ESPN does. Now that one of their own is in the dock, you'd think that it would be incumbent upon them to treat it with the same sort of "care and sensitivity" they handled both the Imus and Tilghman stories.
Or not. In that case, something tells me that Le Anne Schreiber's mailbox will be filled to bursting in the next couple of days.
Thanks to Michael David Smith, Awful Announcing and Small White Ball for the links.
UPDATE: Jacobson has apologized, and will serve a one-week suspension. Be sure to watch PTI and SportsCenter tonight to see how this gets handled.
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* Somebody's editor ought to be asking just why Jacobson's comments didn't end up in this story.
