ESPN Can't Deny That It's A Political Organization After Allowing Mina Kimes To Promote Democrat Candidate
When ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro said in 2018 that ESPN is "not a political organization," he must have meant with the exception of Mina Kimes and the other privileged wokes at the network.
Sunday, Kimes uploaded a photo to her Instagram story that encouraged sports fans to vote far-Left Karen Bass for Mayor of Los Angeles. Bass will lower taxes unlike her opponent Rick Caruso, Kimes wrote out.
Kimes broke the no-politics policy at ESPN but the network will not address the matter, despite several requests for comment from OutKick.
Moreover, ESPN was aware that Kimes kept this photo up for over 22 hours before it timed out and deleted. Yet the network did nothing about it.
In conclusion, ESPN didn't care that Kimes used a social channel that ESPN built for her to endorse a political candidate.
Since 2018, ESPN has also allowed Mark Jones to post fringe left-wing ideas on social media, Jalen Rose to lie about the American police force, and Elle Duncan to protest Florida Republicans for banning the discussion of gender fluidity in classrooms third grade and younger.
You'd think that ESPN would be less transparent about its liberal exception to the rule since Sage Steele is suing ESPN and parent company Disney for using selective punishment when it benched her for answering questions about the COVID-19 vaccine and Barack Obama on a podcast with Jay Cutler last year. Apparently, ESPN has no shame.
"ESPN is not a political organization for people like Sage Steele," Jimmy Pitaro meant to say.
ESPN holding the woke and Steele to different standards is in part due to Disney normalizing the far-Left way of thinking. It's also a bit of cowardice.
See, even though most ESPN bosses lean Left, they don't enjoy when Mark Jones tells Rush Limbaugh to "rot in hell" or when Bomani Jones says "white people are the problem" or when Kimes endorses a candidate openly and aggressively. However, ESPN is too afraid to say anything about it, publicly or to the talents directly.
Think about it, if ESPN told Kimes to take down her IG photo with Bass, either Kimes or her allies in the press -- and there are many -- could accuse ESPN of not allowing a woman of color to support a woman of color running for office. That's almost certainly the thinking internally. Just the thought of that possibility deters ESPN from holding Kimes accountable.
By contrast, ESPN didn't have to worry about the New York Times types spending any negative energy on the network for benching Steele. TheTimes approved.
ESPN is sending a message that its talent may endorse candidates this year. Just be sure to check with Kimes on which candidates are appropriate and not at ESPN, a political organization.