An employee with ESPN recently addressed the far-Left political dominance at the declining sports network, insisting that the only way colleagues can keep their jobs is by convincing their employer that they are anti-Trump Democrats.

“I pretend I’m a Democrat so I can keep my job here, and there are others just like me,” one ESPN employee shared when contacting Outkick, according to Townhall. “We’re like a secret society inside ESPN.”

Unequal opportunity

This unsurprising revelation comes on the coattails of ESPN host Jemele Hill’s racist tweet calling President Donald Trump a white supremacist.

“Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/other white supremacists,” Hill posted on Twitter last Monday.

In an attempt to douse another political firestorm, ESPN tried to convince the public that disciplinary measures were being taken for Hill’s blatant personal attack on Trump – similar to the severe repercussions it dealt out to those not on board with the radical Left – but little more than a slap on the wrist was actually given to Hill.

“The network said that this issue had been addressed, and that she realized her actions were inappropriate,” Townhall reported. “Oh, and those tweets don’t reflect the position of ESPN – classic public relations move here.”

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There are no violent conservative demonstrations complaining that ESPN did not fire Hill, as even though airing out one’s political views is not in the job description of sportscasters, it is still protected under free speech in America. However, the flippant treatment of this situation highlights ESPN’s extreme favoritism of those leaning on the Left.

“On its face, what Hill did was not an offense that would warrant termination, but was worthy of a reprimand and a social media torching,” Townhall’s Matt Vespa rationalized. “It was a stupid remark. We all know that. Then again, Curt Schilling was fired for an offense of a much lesser degree concerning transgender bathrooms.”

Don’t step to the Right …

Things also did not go well for longtime ESPN anchor, Linda Cohn – as it did for Hill – because her political view did not align with the progressive outlook pushed by the network’s culture. Cohn was suspended after she asserted in April that ESPN’s politics could likely be one reason for its nosediving subscription base.

“That is definitely a percentage of it,” Cohn replied when asked on the New York radio show, Bernie and Sid, if viewers were tuning out due to ESPN’s politics, according to the New York Post. “I don’t know how big a percentage, but if anyone wants to ignore that fact, they’re blind.”

ESPN’s downward spiral began several years ago, when Leftist politics began to go hand-in-hand with its sports programming on a regular basis.

“ESPN has lost 10 million subscribers over the past five years as ‘cord-cutting’ allows viewers to cancel their cable subscriptions in favor of online streaming services,” Sports Illustrated’s (SI) announced on its website in April. “At the same time, ESPN’s programming costs have been steadily rising.”

This led to a significant purge of many of ESPN’s veteran cast … a downsizing that was seemingly induced – at least in part – by the sports network’s choice to go political.

“That combination led to ESPN’s round of significant layoffs on Wednesday that saw as many as 100 well-known personalities lose their jobs,” SI continued. “Cohn has been with ESPN for nearly 25 years and hosted SportsCenter over 5,000 times.”

Just don’t get it?

Yet ESPN appears to be in denial when it comes to admitting that the plummet in viewership – leading to a hundred layoffs – has anything to do with its politicizing of sports.

“The programmer, which has around 8,000 employees, says it’s making the moves as it adapts its mix of TV and digital programming to the Twitter/Facebook/Snapchat age,” Recode.net reported this spring.

ESPN President John Skipper notified his employees months ago that innovations in technology would set the network back on track.

“Our content strategy … still needs to go further, faster … and as always, must be efficient and nimble,” Skipper told his employees in a note, according to ESPN.

Other possible factors were also mentioned for the decline by the media, but little to no attention was given to the fact that a substantial part of ESPN’s viewership base is turned off by tuning in to the network’s politics when they want to watch sports.

“Another reason is less positive: ESPN’s business, once the envy of the media world, is on more wobbly footing these days,” Recode.net’s Peter Kafka and Rani Molla explained at the time. “Its content costs are rising as it pays ever-increasing fees for rights to show college and pro sports. But its subscriber base is shrinking as pay TV customers cut the cord or never sign up for it in the first place.”

Unavoidable

With its ongoing controversies, ESPN is unable to avoid its political bias being covered by the media.

“ESPN is a network where you can call the president a racist, but get suspended if you criticize the network,” Townhall’s Matt Vespa pointed out. “Clay Travis of Outkick The Coverage, and a sports analyst for Fox Sports 1, reported on this development earlier this week and got a ton of statements from his sources within the network upon the Hill backlash.”

Employees inside the declining sports world giant are apparently getting fed up with watching their employer evolve from a sports hub into a political network.

“I’m tired of pretending this company is not full of [expletive]” one ESPN employee commented, according to Outkick.

The unequal treatment ESPN dishes out to its employees because of their political views is becoming common knowledge to more and more Americans.

“Most inside ESPN kept the Cohn story quiet until yesterday, when Jemele Hill received no punishment for Tweeting Donald Trump was a ‘white supremacist,’ that Trump was only elected president because he was white and had the support of racists and that Trump’s administration – the cabinet of which features a black man, an Indian woman, an Asian woman, and multiple Jewish people – was ‘largely…white supremacists,’” Outkick reported.

Soon afterward, more from within ESPN expressed their contempt for their employer’s continual politicizing of sports.

“At that point, the floodgates broke and employee after employee reached out to Outkick to share the Cohn story and other comments,” Outkick added. “(Outkick granted them anonymity because they all feared being fired if they used their names. Plus, these are the same sources that have consistently been correct about ESPN’s firings, the Robert Lee debacle and now the Linda Cohn suspension).”

ESPN’s double standard was brought up time and time again.

“If Jemele can say that and Linda can’t say what she said, what kind of standard actually exists here?” another ESPN personality posed while sharing with Outkick. “There isn’t one. There’s clearly a double standard. If you say things the company agrees with, you don’t get punished. If you say things the company disagrees with, you do get punished. Maybe even fired.”

The shift in tolerance between the Obama and Trump administrations was highlighted.

“If I’d said Obama got elected because he was black, is there any way I’d still be employed here?” another prominent ESPN employee sharing on the condition of anonymity rhetorically asked Outkick before answering his/her own question. “No chance. But Jemele can say Trump got elected because of white racists and no one does anything? They protect the people they agree with politically. They give them better jobs, more money – everyone can see it.”

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Copyright American Family News. Reprinted with permission.

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