Jeremy Lin Scandal - Background

On Saturday, February 18^th, ESPN editor Anthony Federico wrote an article about the New York Knicks’ loss against the New Orleans Hornets for their mobile site with what would prove to be a career-ending headline, ‘Chink in the Armor: Jeremy Lin’s 9 turnovers cost Knicks...’ The article was removed after 45 minutes, Federico was promptly fired, and an anchor, Max Bretos, was issued a 30-day suspension for using the same phrase on air, despite the editor’s claim that he had used the phrase dozens of timesprior to the incident and that its use was not racially motivated.

ESPN has since provided minimal commentary on the matter, with an initial statement that the article had been removed, and a second statement referencing the post (and anadditional, separate incident that was made on ESPN Radio New York) and the actions taken by ESPN in the days following Saturday’s post. 

This blog post was written with the intention of posting it to ESPN.com within 24 hours of the original article being removed from the site, prior to learning about the radio commentator’s identical statement.