Ep 139 Media Lessons from Curt Schilling and ESPN Media Training May 18, 2016

ESPN and Curt Schilling show there's a right way to behave during crisis communications time and a wrong way.

Speaking. The show about effective speaking in public to the media, at work and in life. Speaking with TJ Walker.

I'm going to wade into some controversy here, although it's perhaps not that controversial these days. A lot of people are angry at espn, or some people are angry at ESPN for firing Kurt Schilling. And this happened in early 2016 after Kurt Schilling made a whole series of inflammatory statements social media. Otherwise, he finally did once too many. And ESPN said, that's enough. You're gone. Now, it's been about a month between the time ESPN fired Schilling and the recording of this program today, and the issue is basically gone. You don't hear about it anymore. To me, that's an excellent sign that ESPN did exactly the right thing. They didn't put their finger in the wind. They didn't debate. They didn't let it dominate all of political talk radio and sports talk radio for weeks and weeks and weeks and months. They just got rid of them. Now, let's go through the basic facts again and isolate exactly what happened here. There was a post on social media. The post showed an overweight man wearing a wig and women's clothing with parts of the T shirt cut out to expose his breast. It says, let him in to the restroom with your daughter or else you're a narrow minded, judgmental, unloving, racist bigot who needs to die. Now, Curt Schilling, the famed former professional baseball player who was then an analyst for espn, added this commentary. He said, a man is a man, no matter what they call themselves. I don't care what they are, who they sleep with. Men's rooms was designed for the penis. Women's not so much. Now you need laws telling us differently. Pathetic. Now, at this point, this issue may seem dated to others, but in 2016, early 2016, there's still huge controversy because the state of North Carolina, my home state, has passed a law making it illegal for any municipality there to make it acceptable for transgenders to go into the bathroom of their choice. This is seen by many as an absolute attack on the transgendered community as an overt play to bigotry, as sort of an overt sign of just hatred. And I understand all of you might not feel that way, but according to most polls, about 70% of Americans do view that this idea that you're going to sort of pick on people who've gone through gender reassignment or have switched genders and tell them that they have to go to the bathroom of the gender that they were born to on their birth certificate just strikes a whole lot of people as a fake, phony issue designed to stir up hatreds and not really solve a pressing current public policy issue. Well, Curt Schilling weighed into this and look folks, he certainly has the right to be a conservative. He has the right to be a conservative Republican. He has the right to enjoy listening to Rush Limbaugh. That doesn't take you out of the bounds of acceptable conversation in America. It doesn't mean you're unemployable by major media networks. But he did something very different. And I think regardless of your political views at this point, people have to realize if you're going to take large sums of money from corporations that take advertising and take sponsorship from huge, huge consumer good companies that sell their products to the whole world, people of all races, ethnicities, religions, genders, sexual preferences, you simply can't go out of your way to say things that are considered wildly offensive and beyond the pale. I realize some view this as just capitulation to political correctness. More on that in a moment.

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So are we living in politically correct times where if you say anything unpopular, you're going to be fired, lose your job, lose your livelihood, lose your source of income? I think that's a bit of a stretch. That's an overstatement. But we do live in an era now where it's simply different than it was in the 1950s or 60s, 70s or 80s. There certainly was a time when it was considered mainstream fare. To make fun of all gays as effeminate and limp wristed and lisping. To make fun of all black people as step and fetch it and subservient, to frankly make fun of anyone who's different as being inferior and as a subject of mockery. And the people who've been made fun of for all these years have finally said enough, we're just not going to take it any longer. And they are speaking. They're speaking with their pocketbooks, they're speaking with their book of Business and corporations are listening. CEOs who frankly don't really care that much about politics or might have politics in some extreme level, care about one thing above all the bottom line, money. And they care very much about needlessly offending vast swaths of their consumer base and of their Customers. And that's really the problem for Curt Schilling. If he wants to write in any sort of an extremist on a political ballot, that's his right. We have a secret ballot in the United States. But here's my challenge to Curt Schilling. If he saw a commentator, a commentator X on national TV or on that person's Facebook page saying, I hate all members of the, let's say the Christian faith, would Curt Schilling be happy about that? Or would he say, well, that's an example of left wing, immoral, extremist, agenda filled media? I don't think he'd be happy about that. And in fact, while you certainly may have atheists in the media, you certainly don't hear very many of them openly denouncing and ridiculing people's faith and their religions. And they might think that, but they're not saying that because they don't want to lose their jobs, they don't want to lose their sponsorships. And that particular case of religion, for example, the only exception I can think of is Bill Maher, who has a show on hbo and guess what? He has no advertising. And if he had advertising, he probably wouldn't be saying that because it would completely, well, likely get him fired as it did from abc. Not on that issue, but on another. So, folks, everyone has the freedom of speech. What you don't have in America, or as far as I know, any other country, is you don't have the freedom to say wildly offensive things that most people in your audience would consider just incredibly boorish and still get paid millions of dollars for it. Kurt Schilling can write anything he wants, mock anybody he wants all day long on his Facebook page, just can't do it, and expect to be paid by sponsors who have to answer to their customers. So that's. Most of us don't need that lesson. But I do realize there are some out there who feel aggrieved, who feel that somehow Curt Schilling is a victim in the culture war. If you want to feel that way, fine. But ask yourself, would the world really be that? Are we that much worse off without this guy, number one? Number two, if you're in a position like this, if you have a position of trust, fame, vast wealth flowing your way, is it really asking too much to keep your opinions that are wildly offensive to people in an area that has nothing to do with your expertise? Curt Schilling wants to radically rip apart the tradition of so many young kids ruining their arms, getting Tommy John surgery. He's got a lot of credibility on that, or at least in depth knowledge. What his area of expertise is talking about transgendered people causing problems in bathrooms, I don't know. I said I do know. His credibility, his experience, his expertise is exactly zero. And that's why it's just better off keeping his thoughts to himself. I don't want to sound like I'm being prudish or being a censor, but there are trade offs. Again, Kurt, if you want to be like me and not be, be accountable to sponsors, go ahead. Start your own YouTube show. Start your own show on itunes and you can pontificate on every aspect of bathroom policy or any other policy you want. That's the real lesson here, folks. You can say whatever you want. At least in the United States in some countries. I was just over in Thailand and you got front page stories there about how politicians, prominent politicians are sent to reorientation, fought police camp for making anything critical of the political powers. We don't have that in the United States. Sadly, that does exist in a lot of other countries. But wherever you are, you've got to look at your political environment if you want to lobby for more openness. I'm all in favor of it. But don't confuse censorship with the idea that big companies don't have to pay you a lot of money if you continually say offensive things. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me. May all of your presentations in life be a huge success.

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