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Tribune sportswriter Mike Downey briefly departs from the sporting world to announce the end of a glass ceiling today in his "In the Wake of the News" column, True equality: Both Sexes can be Ingrates". The column includes a roundup of "publicly humiliating stunts that female TV personalities have pulled" in recent months, beginning with ESPN's Dana Jacobson, who got liquored up at an off-air "Mike and Mike" roast last week and laid into Notre Dame's sacred "Touchdown Jesus" (she's an alum of rival Michigan).
Female broadcasters are making the same career-ending blunders as their male counterparts these days, but in many cases, they're receiving more negative press. Jacobson seems to have dropped the F-bomb a few times (gasp!) while deriding Notre Dame and the Touchdown Jesus, but videos of the roast haven't been released, and accounts vary as to what she said exactly. [Ed note: Fuck Notre Dame, fuck Touchdown Jesus" and "fuck Jesus," apparently.]
In his column, Downey takes a few lines to show how a real man roasts:
As a member of the male species, may I say it's a relief to see how you women have been catching up to us pigs and pagans, slowly but surely, in advancing to high-profile media positions and then proceeding to become notorious for irresponsible and embarrassing behavior?
Do we detect a tinge of schadenfreude? Downey isn't the only Trib writer covering Jacobson though; Manya Brachear also devoted her religion blog to the story yesterday ("Dana Jacobson roasts Jesus").
This is tabloid fodder that the Trib is seizing on in an attempt to make news where there isn't – most other big papers gave the incident only passing reference. Surprisingly, it's Jason Whitlock at FOX Sports that gets it mostly right:
The second-best thing about Jacobson's rant is that it drew attention to the lame Mike and Mike roast. ESPN desperately wants you to believe Greenberg and Golic are big stars. They're not. If they were, they wouldn't have an F-list celebrity/assclown like Jacobson roasting them.
--Mark Boyer
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I think people are most upset because Notre Dame got bashed. This country still isn't over it's love affair with that school, many many years after it's last bowl win.
Mike Downey is by far the worst columnist the Tribune has to offer. Nothing he says is interesting, newsworthy or even expresses much of an opinion. And his attempts to use pop culture are ridiculous.
In the context of a ROAST, which this was, what's said and JOKED about is SUPPOSED TO BE OFFENSIVE! There was absolutely NOTHING wrong with what she said in this context of a roast. If these people have ever seen a roast (which I'm guessing many of them haven't), everything and everybody - Whites, Blacks, homosexuals, Hispanics, Asians, Muslims, Christians, Jews, etc. etc. etc. - are all fair game in the context of a roast.
This is absolutely not the same as Imus or any other hate speech that people are claiming this is. If she said that in an interview with a newspaper, magazine, television reporter, or if she said it most other contexts, then I can see how she'd be in hot water. In this case, she should not be disciplined one bit because she did absolutely nothing wrong in the context of the roast.
This uproar is just another example that we live in a country full of simple-minded folks who have little to no reasoning ability.
Good call Bombast...can you imagine what would happen if every person at a Friar's Club Roast was reprimanded for what they said? Or even worse the televised COmedy Central ROasts. Way worse is said on those shows that are TELEVISED!
Some lady that no one knows said something sort of offensive at a roast that no one saw -- why the fuck is this newsworthy?!
I agree with you, Slaphappy. This shouldn't be newsworthy at all, but for some unreasonable reason it is. This whole thing is just ridiculous.
The Tiger Woods thing was ridiculous too.
I dunno, considering how tight of an anus ESPN is anymore, this makes me like her all that much more.
I alway get a kick out of woman that can out dirty men. Sarah Silverman... Lisa Camanelli... Any of the fine ladies currently tearing up shit at the local stand-up scene. (Emily Dorezas and Fay Canale for example)
I loves me a woman with a filthy mouth.
I wouldn't fuck Jesus with Bea Arthur's dick.
I agree, not offensive- but I'd imagine many of the same people snearing at the stupid one liner would be deriding her if she said the same about Mohammed.
They keep reporting on it -- and we keep reading about it on here. Chicagoist, why do you keep calling attention to how bad/inadequate MSM is? What's the point?