On the Friday airing of “The Herd” on Fox Sports 1, j.school blogger Jason Whitlock said the media is intentionally “driving” the race debate leading up to Super Bowl 50 in order to boost ratings.
Whitlock agreed with former NBA star Charles Barkley, who accused ESPN on Wednesday of purposefully “framing the narrative” of Super Bowl 50 into “black versus white, good versus evil” since the two quarterbacks, Peyton Manning and Cam Newton, are both different races.
“We had Russell Wilson play Peyton Manning just two years ago in the Super Bowl. Russell Wilson is black. Somehow it didn’t evolve into some low hanging fruit race discussion. We had Donovan McNabb in the Super Bowl and he was expressive in the way he played and did a Michael Jackson dance occasionally. Donovan McNabb, not the most popular quarterback and he embraced the moment and talked about it, but that didn’t evolve into this race-bait discussion. What has happened is the media has moved and changed. The media has gone all in on racial debate discussions that are divisive for clicks and ratings. So, the media is driving all of this,” Whitlock said.
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