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Contents 1 African-American 2 Kansas City Star 3 Still at ESPN? 4 What he said

[edit] African-American

I don't know the conventions in America, but why is "African-American" listed as opposed to just "American" in the introduction? Is his race one of the defining characteristics of his personality? We wouldn't introduce a white journalist as a "caucasian American journalist" so I don't see why we should do so with African-Americans. I'm not trying to be politically correct here, this is a question about what sort of information should be included in an introduction section and I don't really see how his ethnicity is particularly relevant.

[edit] Kansas City Star

why does this article link to the kansas city star?

A: Because Whitlock has been a columnist there for many years now.

I agree with the comments about the journalist's ethnicity. I hold a degree in journalism, and I am white,(or should I say European-American?), and I don't believe that a person's ethnic background has any bearing on that person's ability to be objective. We are supposed to be objective, remember? I think Theodore Roosevelt put it best - "There are no hyphenated Americans, only Americans. Once someone leaves there country of origin and comes to the U.S.A., they are no longer Italian-Americans, etc."

Could he have meant that putting one's ethnicity out front could be interpreted as preferential treatment? That's not what this country is all about. At least not the country in which I grew up. ```` —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.236.176.63 (talk) 16:21, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Still at ESPN?

Has he been sacked by ESPN? His most recent column for ESPN.com (a pretty scathing indictment of "integrity" in sports) was dated 8/03/06, and he hasn't been a panelist on The Sports Reporters or a guest host on PTI for several weeks, but he has still been writing his column for the KC Star.

[edit] What he said

I don't know much about Scoop Jackson, but Whitlock was right about Mike Lupica. He IS mean-spirited, and he IS insecure, and he IS a busybody. And I actually LIKE his political comments! Other than that, "Big Sexy" (as Whitlock calls himself) was absolutely right.

-Can someone put a detailed summary of what happened between Jason and Scoop? Cubzrule 07:04, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I can tell you what happened... Scoop Jackson doesn't write complete sentences and it is a shame to the black community that ESPN has chosen his work over the work of an actual writer like Jason Whitlock. Scoop Jackson has no basis on race relations whatsoever. If you can find it, read his top 10 sports stories of last year. At least 9 of them deal strictly with black race relations. He even said one of the top 10 stories of the year was the fact that Stephen A. Smith got his own show b/c he's black. Scoop is a prime example of why many white people dislike black people. They think that black people turn to the race card instantly every chance they get, and that's exactly what Scoop Jackson did. Luckily, there are people like Jason Whitlock who speak on both sides of the card, wherever the truth is. And basically, Jason told an interviewer that Scoop is a total clown in his writings. He makes black people look like talking like that and writing like that, in sentence fragments and using 'gangsta' words, will get you a prominent job at ESPN, so he criticized their people for promoting this type of writing. He said that this hurts black communities if they think they can write in incomplete sentences and still get top journalism jobs. Thus, he was fired.

If you get a chance, look at Scoop's writings before the Jason Whitlock controversy and after... he suddenly changes to complete sentences and he makes a whole lot more sense, and everything isn't straight to the race card in every column. So even though Scoop tried to defend himself, it was all nonsense. Instead of sticking to his guns, he changed his style so as not to seem like the kind of person Jason said he was.