What is it with Sports Reporters?
We are conditioned to expect that reporters are to be publicly neutral when it comes to candidates and issues. Sure, we all know that there is a liberal bias as to what gets reported and what does not get reported, but you (generally) don’t get reporters engaging in Twitter dialogue advocating for an issue.
Sports reporters are a different breed these days.
The most obvious version of this is Bob Costas. We have seen, time and again, Costas use his platform on NBC to promote all sorts of left-wing agendas, particularly as it relates to gun control. At least Keith Olbermann had the courtesy to leave sports journalism behind before he started his ham-handed handling of issues and liberal activism.
Nor is the issue of liberal sports activism a new thing. The Media Research Center did a piece on this a few years ago. And many of you may remember back in September of 2013 when ESPN’s Buster Olney and Sarah Spain accused me of bigotry and flaunted their own anti-Catholic bigotry because I thought the name of some swimmer that you don’t remember was not worthy of the title of superhero. And many other current and ESPN personalities like Jamele Hill, Tony Kornheiser, Stephen A. Smith, Jason Whitlock, Michael Wilbon and others have used their media platforms to promote a left-wing agenda. While ESPN has a policy regarding politics, only Curt Schilling has fallen victim to it.
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The latest example of this left-wing nonsense permeating sports is Baltimore’s own Jason La Canfora. La Canfora, instead of doing his job and reporting on sports, has been spending his days this week being a full on advocate of gun control.
That LaCanfora wants to spend his work time being an advocate against civil liberties is not my business. Maybe CBS Sports doesn’t care that they are paying him for being a volunteer for Moms Demand. But the really disturbing thing that La Canfora said was this:
@seanmdav i’m calling semi-automatic machines machine guns. You don’t get to pick my terms. Your NRA buzzwords don’t apply to me
— Jason La Canfora (@JasonLaCanfora) June 22, 2016
To recap here, La Canfora is acknowledging that he is ignorant as to what the definition of a machine gun is, doesn’t care that he is wrong, and admits that he’s going to call it what he wants to call it regardless of the facts of the situation. He’s firmly embracing the “This is my truth” philosophy.
That brings all sorts of questions into play. Mainly this: Does Jason La Canfora play loose with the facts when he is reporting on sports for CBS?
It’s a serious question that needs to be asked. Jason La Canfora is publicly using his Twitter account to say that facts do not matter and that he will say what he wants to say. If La Canfora were an opinion writer, that might be one thing. However La Canfora is an NFL beat reporter and an integral part of CBS’s football coverage. This isn’t an issue of politics as much as it is an issue of credibility. Can people believe Jason La Canfora’s and, by extension, CBS Sports NFL coverage? Can we be assured that they are telling the truth?
It’s unfortunate that this intersection of sports and politics keeps happening. Most of us, myself included, don’t like to see politics intertwined with our sports. We want to watch the game, enjoy it, and worry about politics in a few hours. However when these left-wing sports journalists continue to use their platforms to promote their agendas, it lessens the enjoyment for everybody. Few others have gone as far as La Canfora, Olney, and Spain in just making stuff up to fit their agenda. But it is a cancer on sports journalism that we must, sadly, be on the lookout for.
