By Austen Hufford
President Donald Trump on Friday demanded an apology from ESPN
over a commentator's tweet calling him a white supremacist, and
said the sports behemoth's business is suffering because of its
political leanings.
On Monday, Jemele Hill, a co-host of ESPN's flagship
"SportsCenter" program, also said via Twitter that Mr. Trump had
surrounded himself with other white supremacists. Her tweets
sparked calls from some critics for Ms. Hill, who is black, to be
suspended or fired. Others defended her.
On Friday morning, Mr. Trump tweeted: "ESPN is paying a really
big price for its politics (and bad programming). People are
dumping it in RECORD numbers. Apologize for untruth!"
Asked about Ms. Hill's comments at a press briefing Wednesday,
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said the tweets were a
"fireable offense" and were some of the "more outrageous comments
that anyone could make."
ESPN had no comment Friday about Mr. Trump's tweet. Earlier this
week, the network said Ms. Hill's comments were "inappropriate" and
didn't represent the views of ESPN, adding that it had addressed
the issue with Ms. Hill.
"Jemele has a right to her personal opinions, but not to
publicly share them on a platform that implies that she was in any
way speaking on behalf of ESPN," the company said.
Ms. Hill said Wednesday on Twitter that her comments "expressed
her personal beliefs" but she regrets the "public way" she made
them. ESPN said it accepted her apology, and Ms. Hill continues to
appear on "SportsCenter."
The latest storm hits Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN at a particularly
difficult time as the sports network struggles with years of
declining subscribers and viewers.
Critics say the network has a liberal bent, and might be partly
responsible for the declining audience. Mr. Trump's tweet echoed
that assessment, though it was unclear if he was referring to
ESPN's subscribers or ratings.
But analysts say the TV-and-internet sports programmer is being
hit by broader forces affecting all major media companies, as more
consumers cut the cable-TV cord, downshift to "skinny" bundles or
shift to streaming TV services. Those trends date back several
years to well before the start of Mr. Trump's presidential
campaign.
In four years, ESPN has gone from about 98 million subscribers
to about 87 million, according to Nielsen estimates. Including
newer subscription streaming services that carry ESPN, the
subscriber count was about 87.2 million in August.
So far this year, ESPN is averaging about 1.4 million viewers in
prime time, down about 11% from two years ago, according to
Nielsen. In the 18-to-49-year-old demographic coveted by
advertisers, the network's ratings are down about 13%, the data
show.
To help address viewers' shifting habits, Disney is starting a
direct-to-consumer streaming ESPN service early next year. It will
not have programming that airs on ESPN's TV channels.
At its shareholder meeting in March, Disney Chief Executive Bob
Iger defended ESPN when confronted with an accusation that the
sports network was biased against Mr. Trump and catered to liberal
audiences.
"The charge that ESPN is exhibiting significant political bias
in its program is just completely exaggerated," Mr. Iger said.
"Watch ESPN, you're not going to see political bias."
ESPN's policies for employees and social media state that
commentators should refrain from overt partisanship and "avoid
personal attacks and inflammatory rhetoric." It also states that a
tweet is akin to being on the air.
Media companies increasingly are confronted with determining the
fine line between inflammatory comments and personal expression and
deciding when an employee's comments are private or directly
related to their job.
Still, ESPN Public Editor Jim Brady wrote in December that the
network has taken a "more identifiable political stance" as the
company has increasingly aired debate-focused shows and talent uses
the informal nature of Twitter to connect with audiences.
"Internally, there's a feeling among many staffers -- both
liberal and conservative -- that the company's perceived move
leftward has had a stifling effect on discourse inside the company
and has affected its public-facing products. Consumers have sensed
that same leftward movement, alienating some," he wrote.
He pointed to ESPN's awarding Caitlyn Jenner the Arthur Ashe
Courage Award at the 2015 ESPYS, its decision to move a golf
tournament away from a Trump-owned club and "a perceived inequity
in how punishments for controversial statements were meted out," he
wrote.
On Friday, Mr. Brady weighed in on the situation with Ms. Hill,
saying she "made an error in judgment in those tweets" and
reiterating his previous comments that the company "leans
left."
Some, including the White House press secretary, point to the
reprimand of another ESPN "SportsCenter" anchor, Linda Cohn, who
was briefly suspended earlier this year after saying in a radio
interview that some of ESPN's subscriber losses were due to viewers
being turned off by political commentary, according to media
reports. Her comments were made shortly after ESPN announced
layoffs of about 100 employees, including on-air talent.
"ESPN has been hypocritical," Ms. Sanders said in a press
briefing Friday, following Mr. Trump's tweet. "They should hold
anchors to a fair and consistent standard."
Write to Austen Hufford at austen.hufford@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 15, 2017 18:18 ET (22:18 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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