Sportscaster Mark Giangreco’s near 30-year run at ABC 7 in Chicago has come to an end after a joke about a female colleague in which he said she could play a “ditz” on television.
On January 28, Giangreco, who began covering sports in Chicago in 1982 and joined local ABC 7 in 1994, joked that news anchor Cheryl Burton could play the “ditzy, combative interior decorator” on a DIY show.
Burton, however, failed to see the humor in the joke and filed a complaint against Giangreco. The joke and subsequent complaint resulted in Giangreco getting pulled off the air. On Friday, the station and Giangreco came to terms on a settlement that formally ended the longtime sports anchor’s time with the station.
Though, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, the tension between Burton and Giangreco had been brewing for some time.
According to the Sun-Times:
But there has been tension between Giangreco and Burton for years, according to sources, and this appears to have been her breaking point. Others who have worked with Giangreco have brushed off similar remarks as playful. Considering Burton complained to management, it’s fair to question whether management would have done anything had she not, knowing Giangreco’s persona.
The Sun-Times continued:
If some of Giangreco’s previous transgressions occurred today, he wouldn’t have survived them. His most notable one came in 1999, when he said former Bears running back Walter Payton looked like Gandhi, not knowing Payton had a liver disease that would kill him that year. Giangreco apologized profusely for the mistake, and Payton called to forgive him.
In 2004, after the Pistons won the NBA title, he aired a black-and-white video of fires and joked that it was ‘a typical night in Detroit.’ The station suspended him for week. Most recently, in 2017, Giangreco reportedly was suspended for multiple weeks without pay for calling former President Donald Trump a ‘cartoon lunatic’ and the United States a ‘country full of simpletons’ in a tweet.
ABC General Manager John Idler released a statement on Giangreco’s departure.
I have some news I would like to share about a longtime member of the ABC 7 family. Mark Giangreco, who has been as influential on the Chicago sports scene as the athletes he’s covered, is moving on to a new chapter. During his career, Mark has been there and done that’ covering daily highlights and championship play for every major sports franchise in this city. He has been widely recognized for reporting sports with both passion and insight. I want to thank Mark for his many contributions to ABC 7 and our viewers. I’m sure you will all join me in wishing him the very best.
In more normal times, Giangreco’s labeling of over 330 million Americans as “simpletons” would have gotten him pulled off the air long before he made a joke about his female colleague being a ditz.
But alas, these are not normal times.
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