Tuesday on a late broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” Howard Kurtz, the host of the network’s show “MediaBuzz” and its top media critic, ripped ESPN for a decision it made to remove one of its announcers from its broadcast of the University of Virginia versus William & Mary football because of his name Robert Lee.
Kurtz called it “political idiocy and journalistic malpractice.”
“It almost seems like a parody,” Kurtz said. “This was just not political correctness by ESPN. It’s political idiocy and journalistic malpractice to boot, and I’m surprised the network is now defending this ridiculous overreaction. I mean, if you played football for years without a helmet, would anybody when they see this guy, Robert Lee, think that he was in anyway a decedent of the late Civil War general. I mean, it is such an overreaction, oversensitivity by a network whose own ombudsman has said had moved too much into politics on the liberal side. I really can’t believe that ESPN, one did this — benching this guy who had nothing to do with the problems in Charlottesville to call the University of Virginia game and two, is now defending it.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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