ESPN discipline against employees in the matter of Lin innuendoes

“At ESPN we are aware of three offensive and inappropriate comments made on ESPN outlets during our coverage of Jeremy Lin.

Saturday we apologized for two references. We have since learned of a similar reference Friday on ESPN Radio New York. The incidents were separate and different. We have engaged in a thorough review of all three and have taken the following action:

• The ESPN employee responsible for our Mobile headline has been dismissed.

• The ESPNEWS anchor has been suspended for 30 days.

• The radio commentator is not an ESPN employee.

We again apologize, especially to Mr. Lin. His accomplishments are a source of great pride to the Asian-American community, including the Asian-American employees at ESPN. Through self-examination, improved editorial practices and controls, and response to constructive criticism, we will be better in the future.”

The offensive remarks were apparently “chink in the armor” puns, and judging from ESPN’s reaction, I would assume they were deliberate. You simply can’t make those kinds of jokes in 2012, and everyone knows it.

Luckily, Lin seems to be a classy guy who doesn’t pay much attention to the verbal abuse. (Many cases have been far worse than this.)

In football/soccer it’s been African players who have taken most of the recent abuse, of course.