Sports Media: JEMELE HILL AT OZY FEST: I PLAN TO LEAVE ESPN AND WON'T KISS POLITICAL ASS

[playahaitian]

https://www.ozy.com/provocateurs/je...-leave-espn-and-wont-kiss-political-ass/88246

Jemele Hill will no longer stick to just sports. After 12 years at ESPN, the Detroit native — who appeared on OZY Fest’s main stage on Sunday — announced in front of a packed crowd that she’s making plans to leave the world of sports for life behind the camera, where she will focus on stories about race and gender.

Earlier this year, Hill moved from her role as host of the 6 p.m. SportsCenter on ESPN specifically to take on the issues of race and gender in sports at the company’s Undefeated platform. That move followed from a pair of controversial moments for Hill on Twitter, one in which she called President Donald Trump a white supremacist, and another in which she suggested the best way to have NFL owners hear fan voices on social issues was to boycott advertisers. That latter outburst netted Hill a suspension.

“Even before everything happened, I was already in the mindset of wondering what was next,” she says. She had planned to wait out her contract. But her suspension and the backlash “have made me think about it sooner and [to] plot out what the next 10–15 years of my life would be.”

Hill and her college roommate recently started a production company last August. The next iteration of her career? Creating content behind the camera. “As much as I’d like to tell you about Golden State’s latest game or tell you about why Jacksonville can win the Super Bowl, some days I just didn’t give a shit because of everything else that was happening in this country.”

Hill sees an opportunity to give voice to underserved people, particularly women of color. Because Black women have “always had to take the back seat to everything, the fight in our community is about dismantling institutional racism” and ”we still have to deal with sexual violence and misogyny.” The problem though is that these issues are “never on the agenda because institutionalized racism are items 1-10.” She aims to change that.

 

[playahaitian]

AS MUCH AS I’D LIKE TO TELL YOU ABOUT GOLDEN STATE’S LATEST GAME OR TELL YOU ABOUT WHY JACKSONVILLE CAN WIN THE SUPER BOWL, SOME DAYS I JUST DIDN’T GIVE A SHIT …​

 

[playahaitian]

Hill’s controversial tweets and subsequent suspension drew criticism from fans who insist ESPN carries a liberal bias and spends too much time on political and social issues. Hill regularly points out that calling for social justice or racial equality shouldn’t be a “political” topic but a human one. But Hill no longer has to worry about balancing the line between sports and politics, one that some would argue doesn’t exist in the first place.

“It must be nice,” Hill quipped. “There’s many a day I wish I could punch a button and just say, ‘I’m not going to be Black today. I’m not going to be a woman today.’” But she knows that’s a luxury she doesn’t have; she also says the sports crowd can’t understand that “it’s never just been about sports. Jackie Robinson integrated baseball 20 years before the civil rights act passed.”



Explicating the intersection of sports and race in particular drove Hill to national prominence going back to her time at the Detroit Free Press. After moving to ESPN as a columnist in 2006, Hill often tackled thorny issues in sports involving race, gender and politics.

Her star truly turned on the show His and Hers, which she co-hosted with Michael Smith. It resonated thanks to the duo’s chemistry, but also owing to their unique perspective and unabashed approach to topics not normally discussed on ESPN. That show ultimately led to her and Smith heading SportsCenter, an experiment that ended in just a year.

In 2018, Hill was named journalist of the year by the National Association of Black Journalists for her work at ESPN. “While there’s a part of me that’s excited about what the next 10–15 years of my life will look like, it’s sad for me,” Hill said about leaving sports behind. “I’ve only had two jobs outside of sports media. I ran a snack counter for the YMCA … and I delivered phone books in college.”

And would Hill ever run for office herself? She admits being approached but says she doesn’t plan to throw her hat in the ring. Politicians, she said, “kiss a little too much ass. That’s not my strong suit.”

Hill holds easily the largest megaphone for a woman of color in sports journalism. The tide of female opinion leaders has risen in the last few years with women like Mina Kimes, Katie Nolan, Kate Fagan and others taking up the mantle from Hill, Michelle Beadle and others.

Though her ESPN contract isn’t up for another two years, Hill says she may leave before then. “So much can happen, so many different factors. … I haven’t made a bad career decision yet, and I’ll know when the right opportunity comes my way because it’ll really have to be special to really leave the sweet spot I’m at now at ESPN.”

Though the precise track of Hill’s future remains a question, at the very least, she will soon be rid of people on Twitter telling her to stick to sports.

 

[playahaitian]

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainmen...h-sports-network-for-race-gender-content.html​

 

[playahaitian]

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[playahaitian]

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[playahaitian]

Jemele Hill returns to Detroit on top of her game
By Imani Mixon @ImaniMixon

• Illustration by Eric Millikin

Last Wednesday night, ESPN correspondent and columnist Jemele Hill attended a private Nike event in Washington. D.C. For some journalists this would be an opportunity to rub shoulders with some of the best, well-dressed athletes in the league. For Hill, it was the perfect opportunity to grab a quick interview with NBA player Carmelo Anthony, who had been quiet amid a shaky offseason and had been traded for the third time in one year just hours before. Plus, her editors were expecting a story in the morning.

Anthony was just traded to the Atlanta Hawks, who were expected to waive him — rendering him a free agent likely to sign with the Houston Rockets. At the conclusion of the event, Hill saw Anthony, and the two, who have met before, began to chat. In a 10-minute interview, Anthony spoke candidly about his struggles over the past year, and his plans for the future — insider information that he hadn't said on the record with anyone else. Hill returned to her apartment around 11 p.m., wrote a quick news story and filed it for ESPN around 1 a.m., then woke up to turn it into a full column that was published in time to tweet out just as the timeline was waking up.

"The Hawks won't even be a sentence in Anthony's biography," Hill wrote in her column. "Melo is at a fascinating crossroads." In a way, she might as well have been writing about herself. Like Anthony, Hill is also at a crossroads — one that follows a year that saw her temporarily sidelined after speaking truth to power to none other than President Donald Trump (more on that later). This week, she returns to her hometown of Detroit for the National Association of Black Journalists' 43rd Annual Convention — where Hill is being awarded Journalist of the Year, and will be honored at a gala to mark the occasion.

"If you put the work first and concentrate on the craft, the rest should kind of fall into place," Hill says by phone.

At her core, Hill is a writer and a reporter. She looks up to Gary Smith, the award-winning Sports Illustrated features writer, and tries to emphasize storytelling as she keeps her hand on the pulse of the sports world. She loves the process of getting the scoop, turning it into a story, and sharing new information with readers — skills she's been perfecting since she was a high school intern at The Detroit Free Press. And even today, it's not the famous friends, Twitter followers (1.3 million), or even the awards that invigorate Hill. The late-night writing sessions that transform into full news stories and columns in a matter of hours are the moments that excite Hill the most, and it's the same feeling she was chasing when she began pursuing a career in sports journalism.

"There's a certain grind and a hustle and a rhythm to this job, and I've always been in love with that," she says.

Hill is a westsider who attended Detroit's Beaubien Middle School and Mumford High School (which in June renamed its auditorium in her honor). As a rising senior at Mumford, Hill was accepted into the Free Press' high school apprenticeship program — a six-week program that taught students the principles of journalism and linked aspiring journalists with mentors. She joined the National Association of Black Journalists during this time and attended the NABJ Convention in 1992, the last time it was held in Detroit. She later graduated from Michigan State University's journalism program, was a Free Press sportswriter from 1999 to 2005, and became an ESPN columnist in 2006.

Although the sports world is predominantly male-driven, Hill cites pivotal encounters with female writers who inspired her to pursue a career in sports journalism. Johnette Howard, a sportswriter for the Free Press, was Hill's mentor during the high school apprenticeship, taking Hill to her first Lions practice while Howard was working on a profile of former Lions coach Wayne Fontes. Later, she recalls meeting Claire Smith, a sportswriter who Hill admired while she was developing an interest in journalism and reading the daily newspapers to keep up with her favorite teams and players. Hill, who had only seen Smith's byline in The Philadelphia Inquirer, didn't know Smith was a black journalist and shyly introduced herself.

Hill says women like Smith and Howard made her career goals more tangible. "I knew it was kind of unusual for someone who looked like me and was from where I was from to have that kind of trait," she says. "Thanks to early mentorship and being exposed to newspapers early, it was something I thought was possible, so I did everything I could to make sure that this was a dream that actually came true."

‘I had very simple goals. They weren’t about destination or place. It was about being good.’click to tweet
Now, Hill is no longer shadowing the heavy-hitting writers — she is a luminary in the sportswriting world in her own right. For many, she stands as an anomaly — a news reporter with a personality, a black woman in sports broadcasting, a mediamaker with an opinion, a businesswoman who knows how to have fun.

"This is a story I could not even have written or conceptualized," she says of the NABJ's Journalist of the Year honor. "When I signed up to be a member in 1992, I never thought that my career would come full circle where, fast-forward 20 years later, I'd be getting one of the most prestigious awards an organization gives in the company of not only journalists I admire, but my friends and family and the city that truly raised me. So, this is special. I still don't think I've quite processed it yet."

Hill is extremely grateful when it comes to her accolades, responding to her accomplishments with the same awe as the masses. But she isn't fazed by the pressure or the chatter — she's focused on her job. After all, that's what has gotten her this far.

"I had very simple goals," she says. "They weren't about destination or place. It was about being good."

 

[playahaitian]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sport...e-hill-sportscenter-msnbc-20180204-story.html

 

[playahaitian]

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[Dr. Truth]

Much respect. You know you’re doing something right when crackas call you a racist for just mentioning their hypocrisy

 

[RUDY RAYYY MO]

Fuck that bish after her comments about black men

 

[dtownsfinest]

I'm gonna be the hater. I don't feel this shit geniune. How you pro black but got a history of bashing black men?

 

[shaddyvillethug]

nobody cares

Cari Champion took all yo shine

 

[fonzerrillii]

I get kats issues with her.. but let’s be really really really real...

We are all black men that are members of a porn site called Blackgirlonline that is focused on showing naked women.. that we routinely call black women Lovers of Zod, Plastic, Fake, Bitch or thoroughbred... while we address ourselves as being Pro-black.

She writes her stuff or retweets online and we write our stuff or retweets online... Do we, members of this board, have the right to call her out... for bringing to light some of the things that black male members of this board routinely say or do on this board?

I’m not saying that her comments or retweet about us are right... but I don’t see how we can call her out. We talk about Black women all the time. Just look at the comments of kats in the Melissa Ford and Lesean McCoy baby mother thread.

 

[bgbtylvr]

I'm gonna be the hater. I don't feel this shit geniune. How you pro black but got a history of bashing black men?

Shit goes both ways.

 

[dtownsfinest]

I get kats issues with her.. but let’s be really really really real...

We are all black men that are members of a porn site called Blackgirlonline that is focused on showing naked women.. that we routinely call black women Lovers of Zod, Plastic, Fake, Bitch or thoroughbred... while we address ourselves as being Pro-black.

She writes her stuff or retweets online and we write our stuff or retweets online... Do we, members of this board, have the right to call her out... for bringing to light some of the things that black male members of this board routinely say or do on this board?

I’m not saying that her comments are retweet about us are right... but I don’t see how we can call her out. We talk about Black women all the time. Just look at the comments of kats in the Melissa Ford and Lesean McCoy baby mother thread.

Them niggas that be on here dogging black women all the time ain't shit either. None of them are right. You can't be pro black and generalize all black women just like you can't do that shit with black men either.

 

[TheAlias]

I get kats issues with her.. but let’s be really really really real...

We are all black men that are members of a porn site called Blackgirlonline that is focused on showing naked women.. that we routinely call black women Lovers of Zod, Plastic, Fake, Bitch or thoroughbred... while we address ourselves as being Pro-black.

She writes her stuff or retweets online and we write our stuff or retweets online... Do we, members of this board, have the right to call her out... for bringing to light some of the things that black male members of this board routinely say or do on this board?

I’m not saying that her comments are retweet about us are right... but I don’t see how we can call her out. We talk about Black women all the time. Just look at the comments of kats in the Melissa Ford and Lesean McCoy baby mother thread.

 

[Last Dayz]

“It must be nice,” Hill quipped. “There’s many a day I wish I could punch a button and just say, ‘I’m not going to be Black today. I’m not going to be a woman today.’” But she knows that’s a luxury she doesn’t have;

 

[fonzerrillii]

Them niggas that be on here dogging black women all the time ain't shit either. None of them are right. You can't be pro black and generalize all black women just like you can't do that shit with black men either.

Completely agree 1000

 

[Entrepronegro]

Jemele Hill how about you tell us why you co-signed this article?

 

[Bullet]

She going for hers but she lead Michael Smith down the same road trying to support her. He is a after though now on ESPN.

 

[Riggz]

Oprah Van Exel ... I'll never get that out of my head

 

[KingTaharqa]

She going for hers but she lead Michael Smith down the same road trying to support her. He is a after though now on ESPN.

Thats the way the cookie crumbles, shes gonna go on and do her "race and GENDER" thing, and he done. Put your neck on the line for a black feminist and this is what happens.

 

[playahaitian]

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[playahaitian]

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[playahaitian]

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[TimRock]

https://www-foxnews-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2018/08/26/jemele-hill-espn-parting-ways-reports.amp.html?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1#amp_tf=From %1$s&ampshare=http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2018/08/26/jemele-hill-espn-parting-ways-reports.html

A buyout of her reported $2.5 million-per-year contract has been completed and her last day will be Friday, sources told the New York Post.

The separation was due to Hill's desire to be involved in politics, while ESPN wants to be apolitical, the Post reported.

Hill is believed to have recently met with new ESPN President James Pitaro to discuss her exit, Variety reported.

 

[TimRock]

 

[mexico]

Good for her. Always thought she was a provocative thinker who had more to contribute than just sports. Kudos to her for not trying to play it down the middle too scared to piss off white people to protect her gig... (looking at you Stephen A.)

 

[ronmch20]

Ain't gonna kiss "political ass"... Well we know who she was hinting at don't we? Here's a hint, "Stephen A. Smith"

 

[Pworld297]

Good for her. Always thought she was a provocative thinker who had more to contribute than just sports. Kudos to her for not trying to play it down the middle too scared to piss off white people to protect her gig... (looking at you Stephen A.)

Yeah bruh someone better hire her quickly, CNN or MSNBC would be fools not to add her to their lineup.

 

[leonartist]

Got no problem bashing black people to other black people, my issue is bashing black people to white people. We family and are supposed to discuss our issues with one another.

 

[playahaitian]

https://www-foxnews-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2018/08/26/jemele-hill-espn-parting-ways-reports.amp.html?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1#amp_tf=From %1$s&ampshare=http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2018/08/26/jemele-hill-espn-parting-ways-reports.html

A buyout of her reported $2.5 million-per-year contract has been completed and her last day will be Friday, sources told the New York Post.

The separation was due to Hill's desire to be involved in politics, while ESPN wants to be apolitical, the Post reported.

Hill is believed to have recently met with new ESPN President James Pitaro to discuss her exit, Variety reported.

this is fuckery of the highest order...

damn I want to wish some huge failure on them

but Bomani my man.

 

[playahaitian]

https://www.bgol.us/forum/threads/f...-trump-comments-jemele-hill-says-hmmm.984676/

Imma leave this right here though....

 

[Mr. Met]