Ever read Tuesday Morning Quarterback on ESPN.com? Its author, Gregg Easterbook, a member of the Brookings Institution and widely published author on public policy issues related to science, religion, etc., has recently become embroiled in a controversy on race. Central to the controversy...the nature of blogging itself.
Easterbrook said that the quick and easy nature of "publishing" via blog enabled him to miscommunicate a point because it was so quick and easy to get the words out there. Others see that as an example of what's wrong with blogging.
For his comments, which were interpreted as anti-Semitic (we'll consider that a separate issue), he was relieved of his duties at ESPN.
The full story:
A Slate article on the whole mess
My take? Considering the comments were about Michael Eisner, CEO of Disney, which owns ESPN, I think Mr. Easterbrook was playing with fire regardless of the nature of the criticism. When those comments were related to a sensitive subject for which ESPN recently received glaring public attention (see: Rush Limbaugh), the network had no choice. It was more about the politics and less about the issue itself. But that's how life usually works anyway...
So Jonas and I were talking shop in the office today, hashing over the billionaires in the Forbes 400 and just starting to lay down some smack about America's wealth preservationists, the Waltons, when Jonas picked up a tomato off his desk. It's Jonas, so it won't do any good to discuss why he had fresh vegetables within easy reach. The point of this story -- the juicy part -- went all over Jonas' shirt. He picked up the tomato, thought it was his stress ball, and gave it a good, fast squeeze. His tomato exploded all down his shirt and his pants. And I laughed my ass off and gathered all the other analysts around to check out the result of the monster mash.
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