Anthony Federico, the former ESPNer who wrote the "Chink In The Armor" headline
Anthony Federico, the former ESPNer who wrote the "Chink In The Armor" headline
Here's how the headline to this story looked early Saturday morning on ESPN's Soccernet site. We actually got a tip about it from Andy W, but dismissed it because we'd never heard of Lee Dong-Gook and figured ESPN had Westernized the order of his name (in other words, that his given name was Lee and his surname was…
Anthony Federico, the editor behind ESPN's notorious Jeremy Lin headline, took to long-form Twitter today to apologize:
Anthony Federico, the ESPN editor fired yesterday for his unfortunate use of the phrase "Chink in the Armor" in a headline about Jeremy Lin, has explained himself to the the New York Daily News. Federico said he meant no disrespect and was "devastated" once it dawned on him what he had done. The headline had appeared on…
Here, courtesy of @mforbes37, is ESPN's latest appearance in international headlines. Thanks to my pathetic unilinguality, the very thing ESPN would like me not to associate with it is the only thing I can read.
ESPN has acted swiftly and definitively to the outrage of its own creation. The headline writer? Gone. The anchor (Max Bretos) with a similar slip of the tongue? Suspended. Thirty days. The radio guy who made the same mistake? Someone else's problem—he's not an ESPN employee. Phew.
Linsanity is an unstoppable force that one can only hope to contain. Yes, according to many of you who read ESPN's mobile site, this is an actual "Chink in the armor" headline that the leader of sports—worldwide—blared to smartphone and other gadget users following the Knicks loss last night.