View From the Phlipside – ESPN

My name is Jay Phillippi and I’ve spent my life in and around the media.  TV, Radio, the movies and more.  I love ’em and I hate ’em and I always have an opinion.  Call this The View From the Phlipside.

If you’re a sports fan you probably watch ESPN.  And so you may be familiar with the show Pardon the Interrruption, also known as PTI.  This sports commentary program has the unique characteristic of being a sports program that both the non-sports fans in my house, my wife and my daughter, will watch without complaint and with real interest.  Hosts Micheal Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser, both columnists for the Washington Post, among other things, have found a way to make sports interesting and relevant to even non-sports fans.  No small feat that.

This week however, like last week, Wilbon is making do with a guest co-host.  The reason for that is that Tony Kornheiser has been suspended for remarks he made about a female co-worker on his ESPN radio program.  It’s an interesting look at the last vestiges of the old locker room mentality of the sports world.

Kornheiser was suspended for two weeks after making some unflattering comments about the wardrobe of ESPN anchor Hannah Storm.  I won’t repeat the comments in full here but I was surprised at how tame they were.  He referred to her outfit as horrifying and compared it to a catholic school outfit and went on to say it was wrong for a woman in her 40s.  Now let’s be honest about a couple things here.  The male and female anchors at any network are chosen at least in part because they are  physically attractive.  To this middle aged guys eyes Hannah Storm is no exception.  Let me also say that I’m appalled sometimes at what these ladies show up wearing on the air.  Sadly women can’t get away with the sports jacket and tie uniform of the men.  They get hammered if they’re too boring and hammered if they’re not.

So why did Tony get the two week suspension?  I think it’s because ESPN is a little tired of the run of misbehavior by male employees with women both inside and outside the company.  It appears we’ve reached a zero tolerance policy on gender related stupidity.  Which is not a bad thing.  The down side is that it puts the female staff back in the ivory tower to be protected, sheltered and segregated from any rough handling.  I thought that’s what the equal rights movement had been fighting against all these years!  Instead we get this plus the Olympic committees idiotic censure of the Canadian women’s hockey team for their perfectly normal celebration after winning the gold.

Kornheiser was a dope, as he likes to say and he apologized.  It should have ended there.  Protecting everyone from unwanted and inappropriate behavior is one thing.  Major suspensions for this kind of locker room banter is a return to paternalistic, old boy network thinking.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

“The View From the Phlipside” airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright – Jay Phillippi 2010