{"id":611,"date":"2016-11-21T09:18:22","date_gmt":"2016-11-21T14:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/davidclarke\/?p=611"},"modified":"2016-11-21T09:18:22","modified_gmt":"2016-11-21T14:18:22","slug":"espn-finally-admits-targeting-conservatives-was-a-bad-idea-that-is-after-it-lost-viewers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davidclarke\/2016\/11\/espn-finally-admits-targeting-conservatives-was-a-bad-idea-that-is-after-it-lost-viewers\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN finally admits targeting conservatives was a bad idea, that is, after it lost viewers"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/624046280\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.666667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/624046280?et=O_6qtYpNRU9IOO3XeECviw&amp;viewMoreLink=off&amp;sig=jgS8Vh7F2ud6JHuNDiZayj8DkPCvKya7AYzzI8FQDCs=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>It\u2019s often said that the first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem and ESPN has a BIG problem with conservatism and now the network realizes trashing the political beliefs of many of its viewers caused them to change the channel.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Folks are tired of seeing 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick disrespect America. They\u2019re tired of the channel they tune in to watch sports push Black Lives Matter, or gun control instead of just basketball, baseball, and football. Sports fans witnessed ESPN fire pitching legend Curt Schilling because he spoke out against Islamic terrorism and North Carolina\u2019s transgender bathroom bill. Viewers watched as Caitlyn Jenner was given a heroism award and University of Missouri football team was given a humanitarian award because they had the \u201ccourage\u201d to go on strike and force the school\u2019s \u201cracist\u201d president out of his job. Obama always says elections have consequences, well, so does alienating half the country. And ESPN is crawling on its hands and knees to beg for conservative viewers to come back.<\/p>\n<p>The network\u2019s public editor, Jim Brady, said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cOne notion that virtually everyone I spoke to at ESPN dismisses is what some have perceived as unequal treatment of conservatives who make controversial statements vs. liberals who do the same.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cESPN is far from immune from the political fever that has afflicted so much of the country over the past year.\u00a0Internally, there\u2019s a feeling among many staffers \u2014 both liberal and conservative \u2014 that the company\u2019s perceived move leftward has had a stifling effect on discourse inside the company and has affected its public-facing product. Consumers have sensed that same leftward movement, alienating some\u2026. For most of its history, ESPN was viewed relatively apolitically. Its core focus was \u2014 and remains today, of course \u2014 sports. Although the nature of sports meant an occasional detour into politics and culture was inevitable, there wasn\u2019t much chatter about an overall perceived political bias. If there was any tension internally, it didn\u2019t manifest itself publicly.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Long-time anchor Bob Ley has been with ESPN since the beginning and said his employer has no \u201cdiversity of thought.\u201d There are conservative employees within the organization who say they have to \u201ctalk in whispers\u201d because they\u2019re too afraid it will jeopardize their jobs. The overall environment at ESPN can be summed up by what one of its print journalists, Jemele Hill, said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cI would challenge those people who say they feel suppressed. Do you fear backlash, or do you fear right and wrong?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>You can just smell the condescension from here.<\/p>\n<p>But like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/10904\/espn-admits-they-mistreat-conservatives-and-its-ben-shapiro\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Ben Shapiro<\/a> says, feelings and opinions aren\u2019t facts. The Left has a hard time accepting that. They\u2019re too busy vilifying conservatives for having a different set of ideas.<\/p>\n<p>The bottom line is this: ESPN targeted conservatives, and it cost them because if there\u2019s one thing conservatives know how to do, it\u2019s speak with their wallets. It works every time.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Their obvious disdain for conservatives like Curt Schilling should not go unpunished.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2846,"featured_media":612,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>ESPN finally admits targeting conservatives was a bad idea, that is, after it lost viewers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Their obvious disdain for conservatives like Curt Schilling should not go unpunished.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" 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