In trying to make itself apolitical, ESPN is further enmeshed in politics.
ESPN Chicago radio host Ben Finfer did not explicitly say he is not being retained for criticizing Trump, but suggested a tweet that called the president “racist” played a part in his pink slip.
Just two days after ESPN’s company-wide meeting that included the Worldwide Leader’s new social media policy — essentially, don’t talk politics — Finfer announced his contract is not being renewed, of which he blames on two factors.
“A) Apparently the company had decided not to renew my contract for 2018,” he wrote on Facebook on Friday. “B) Last week on Twitter I used not-so-subtle terms to criticize President Trump for being racist, which is a violation of ESPN’s social media guidelines.”
Is this ESPN’s social media policy in action? Not according to the Worldwide Leader.
A source denied his tweet led to his ouster, and ESPN said in a statement, “His contract was up and we decided not to tender a renewal.” According to a Chicago Tribune source, ESPN had made the decision to let Finfer go before the tweet.
Finfer was a part-timer at ESPN 1000 in Chicago who is active and unrestrained on Twitter. While he said he deleted the post that called Trump racist, it was only because his radio boss — “who I respect significantly more than the president” — asked him to. But he does still have several anti-Trump messages on his account, including a retweet that says, “The president of the United States is an unhinged racist.”
“Some troll running a Twitter account for a pro-Trump AM station in town reported me to ESPN bosses,” Finfer wrote. “But my tweet was a violation of the guidelines and I posted it, so I can’t really blame someone else.”
On Wednesday, ESPN hosted a meeting for its front-facing talent, which included a review of the company’s new social media guidelines.
“ESPN is a journalistic organization – not a political organization,” ESPN’s The Undefeated editor-in-chief Kevin Merida said at the conference.
“We should do nothing to undermine that position. ESPN’s focus is sports. By-and-large we are not experts on politics, healthcare policies, terrorism, commerce – that’s not what we do.
“Our audience is not looking for our opinions on the general news of the day,” he added. “And believe me, I get it. It can sometimes be difficult to control impulses or ignore trolls, but that’s what we’re called to do for each other.”
Finfer said he doesn’t know what he’ll do next, but he didn’t sound brokenhearted about the way he went out.
“It’s not ideal to lose a job and have it written about in a major metropolitan newspaper,” Finfer tweeted after the Tribune story was published. “But there’s now official record of me being anti-Trump and I’m cool with that.”
