ESPN suspends Jemele Hill for tweeting about NFL advertiser boycott
ESPN has suspended anchor Jemele Hill after she tweeted that the most effective way to hurt NFL owners would be for people to boycott certain advertisers.
The move to suspend Hill comes after she entered into a public feud with President Donald Trump last month. Hill later apologized and ESPN said that the situation had been addressed internally.
Hill has been among the most outspoken ESPN personalities regarding politics, which has become a bigger part of the sports world since Trump's election. Trump has criticized NFL players multiple times for kneeling during the national anthem. Taking a knee to protest racial inequality has gained steam recently but was pioneered by Colin Kaepernick during Obama's administration.
Hill's tweets on Monday came in response to Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones saying that he would bench any player who refused to stand for the national anthem. (Jones knelt with his players on Sept. 25 before the national anthem, in what was supposed to be a symbol of unity.) Numerous NFL players, including some Cowboys, had recently been kneeling to protest issues including the brutal treatment of black people by police officers and Trump's own attacks on those protests.
Hill sent a series of tweets starting Sunday night regarding the situation. She initially pointed to the hypocrisy of Jones's willingness to sign and play athletes who had committed domestic abuse.
CARD ID: 275277
Hill went on to say that the players had been put in a difficult position, and that the best way for fans to make their feelings known would be by voting with their wallets.
CARD ID: 275279
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On Monday, Hill clarified that she was not saying people should do these things and emphasized that fans that watched the games were culpable for continuing to support Jones.
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That wasn't enough for ESPN, which announced that Hill would be suspended for two weeks.
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Trump been pushing the NFL controversy, as has his administration. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders had previously called for Hill to be fired for her initial comments. Vice President Mike Pence helped push the issue back into the headlines on Sunday when he left a game at which some players knelt—a stunt that appeared to have been pre-planned.
Trump himself has pushed owners to take action against protesting players. He called on them to fire players who knelt during the anthem, and referred to a fictional kneeling player as a "son of a bitch."
ESPN's decision to suspend Hill for her tweets quickly drew criticism from people in the media, particularly since it seemed that the company had balked at criticism of the president but acted on criticism of an NFL owner—with whom ESPN has a business relationship.
Hill's "SC6" co-host Michael Smith will reportedly not appear on the show tonight per a mutual agreement with ESPN, according to The Wrap.
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Even some Trump supporters found it weird to suspend Hill for going after advertisers.
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Topics Politics
Jason Abbruzzese is a Business Reporter at Mashable. He covers the media and telecom industries with a particular focus on how the Internet is changing these markets and impacting consumers. Prior to working at Mashable, Jason served as Markets Reporter and Web Producer at the Financial Times. Jason holds a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and an M.A. in International Affairs from Australian National University.
