I was going to give this a pass. Truly, I was. Jemele Hill, the gifted young woman who co-hosts ESPN’s The Six every night with my old Morrissey Boulevard running buddy Michael Smith, got on her electric Twitter machine and tweeted out her unremarkable—and damned near irrefutable—opinion that the current president of the United States is a racist and a white supremacist. 
 
 This drew the usual screams from the political flying monkeys of the American Right. ESPN responded with a craven corporate response that I’ll get to in a minute, but let me just say right now that you will not believe that the response was written by anyone who ever came within a light-year of any newsgathering operation. OK, so I thought that was pretty much it. I agreed with everything Hill tweeted. I thought what she said should be obvious to everyone in America at this point. She delivered her opinion. There was the customary cyber-bullying pushback, and we all move on. 
 
 That, of course, was until the whole business hit the podium of the White House press room. On Wednesday afternoon, administration spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked about the controversy and this is what she said. 
 
 “That is one of the more outrageous comments that anyone could make and certainly something that is a fireable offense by ESPN.” 
 
 ​ 
 
 Let us pause for a moment and consider how far we’ve drifted into the outer suburbs of Crazytown here. This is the official spokesperson of the President of the United States calling upon a television network to fire one of its highest profile employees because she was mean to the president online. As a taxpayer, this makes me wonder whether or not my money is being well-spent on things like Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s salary. As a journalist, this makes me wonder exactly how far these people will go in knuckling the media to protect their boss’s delicate fee-fee. But you can’t really understand how we got here unless you understand what’s happened to the newsroom. 
 
 A journalist! Peeking through keyholes—running after fire engines—waking people up in the middle of the night to ask them if they think Hitler's going to start a war—stealing pictures off old ladies of their daughters that got chased by apemen!—Hildy Johnson, draft script, His Girl Friday, 1939. 
 
 Well, yeah, what’s your point? 
 
 The first professional newsroom I ever worked in was on the third floor of an old candy factory in Back Bay in Boston. When it got hot in the summer, some of the ancient molasses that was still in the pipes and the walls would start bleeding out again, like some sort of ancient curse come to life. People did great work there. People also regularly swore, drank, romanced, and smoked weed there and it was the best place to work I ever saw. That newspaper is out of business now, and the building is full of high-level clothing stores and loft spaces. 
 
 The second professional newsroom I ever worked in was at an actual daily newspaper hard by the channels that run into Boston Harbor. There was carpeting in this place that was laid down somewhere between the Battle of Agincourt and the Inauguration of Chester A. Arthur. A veteran sportswriter once explained that the carpeting would never be replaced because nobody wanted to know what was underneath it. (His best guess? “An army of dead rats.”) That newspaper has moved uptown now. The building was torn down—presumably with the carpet still in place—and a tower of luxury condominiums has risen from its footprint. 
 
 Newspapering used to be about being loud and profane, and the newsroom used to be about hanging out, swapping lies, concocting elaborate murder plots concerning the dumb brutes of the copy desk, and did I mention hanging out? Being paid to hang out used to be one of the perks of taking up this battered old craft. Now, though, I am told that the newsroom is indistinguishable from the cubicle farms of the insurance and financial services industries. A reporter for a local daily recently showed me a memo from the people in his HR department in which the reporters—grown men and women, all of them—were cautioned to use their “inside voices” while at work. The corporations bought up all the newsrooms and the beancounters took over the profession and that’s how you get wretched little kindergarten memos like that one, and I guarantee you the drone who wrote it gets paid more money than most of the people working in the newsroom. 
 
 Suddenly, all of us had to be concerned about “the brand.” We were warned not to do anything that might damage “the brand.” Often, “the brand” was camouflaged as the publication’s “credibility,” but anyone over the age of five knew that “credibility” translated into don’t write or say anything that might cost us a couple of dollars or get us screamed at by the talk-show lunatics on the radio. I once was severely disciplined by my newspaper for having called Newt Gingrich “a doughy fraud” in another venue. I mean, honestly, if you can’t call a doughy fraud a doughy fraud, what the hell is the fun of being in showbiz? 
 
 And then, almost out of nowhere, came the miracle of the Internet. Suddenly, the buccaneer spirit of the old newsroom, reckless and renegade, had a new place to light for itself, the way it did when the alternative press kicked over the applecart in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Except that this happened all at once, and instantly. The beancounters in charge of what became known, not always affectionately, as “the mainstream press” have floundered for decades trying to monetize this beast that simultaneously was scaring them to death. There was money out there somewhere but, at the same time, the Internet was the wild kingdom, where anybody could find an audience, and where the beancounters’s employees could find an outlet from the steady anesthetizing of what used to be a profession that was always half-outlaw at its best. And that, alas, is where Jemele Hill finds herself right now. 
 
 She tweeted out what she tweeted out, and this is what her employer told the world in response. 
 
 "The comments on Twitter by Jemele Hill regarding the President do not represent the position of ESPN. We have addressed this with Jemele and she recognizes that her actions were inappropriate." 
 
 ​ 
 
 That was not written by a journalist, or anybody who cares about the craft of journalism. That was written by some beancounter—or, worse, some beancounter’s lawyer—who is more concerned with “the brand” than he or she is concerned about standing by a valued employee when the wind begins to blow. We already have gone too far down the road on which our employers presume to have some sort of right to control us in our off hours. Journalists, that ought to mean that our employers have no right to get hysterical for anything we write that’s outside the institution that pays our salary. 
 
 Writers think. Writers write. And, in 2017, that means that they share their thoughts in writing with the world in what has come to be the equivalent in cyberspace of the old town square. To threaten someone’s employment for something they wrote in their personal time just because it drew you some angry phone calls is not a labor strategy. It’s extortion. So, in conclusion, and in the spirit of an earlier Boston alternative journalist named William Lloyd Garrison, who told a sleeping country, “I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—and I will be heard" let me say the following: 
 
 Jemele Hill is a tribute to the people who raised her and an ornament of great value to her profession. 
 
 The President of the United States is a white supremacist and a racist, just like his odious father was before him. 
 
 Go ahead, Sarah. 
 
 Tell them to fire me. ||||| The National Association of Black Journalists issued a statement backing ESPN's Jemele Hill after she tweeted that President Trump was "unqualified and unfit to be President" and “a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists.” 
 
 ESPN issued a statement saying that her comments about Trump "do not represent the position of ESPN." ESPN did not comment on what discipline was given to Hill. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders fired back and said that it was "one of the more outrageous comments that anyone could make and certainly something that I think is a fireable offense by ESPN." 
 
 Several ESPN employees and colleagues responded to the controversy regarding Hill. 
 
 NABJ issued the following statement: 
 
 "Jemele Hill is an award-winning, veteran journalist who has distinguished herself for having insightful opinions and perspectives on a variety of topics. Having been successful along those lines for 20 years, she has been able to connect with viewers on ESPN as well as on various social media platforms. That withstanding, the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) supports Hill's First Amendment rights on all matters of discussion, within and outside the world of sports, as they do not impinge on her duties as a host and commentator.​" 
 
 Hill has not tweeted since Tuesday morning. ||||| Tweet with a location 
 
 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| ESPN host Jemele Hill's tweet calling President Trump a "white supremacist" earned a stinging rebuke from Trump's press secretary on Wednesday. 
 
 From the White House podium, Sarah Sanders said Hill's criticism of the president was a "fireable offense by ESPN." 
 
 It was a highly unusual moment -- a White House official seemingly recommending that a Trump critic be booted from a television network. 
 
 Trump aides have pressured media executives about anti-Trump commentators in the past, but those complaints were made in private. This time it was on-camera for all to see. 
 
 Many people strongly defended Hill's comments, while many other people strongly condemned her and the network that employs her. 
 
 At the end of the day on Wednesday, Hill issued a new statement, not about what Sanders said, but about the overall controversy. 
 
 "My comments on Twitter expressed my personal beliefs," Hill said. "My regret is that my comments and the public way I made them painted ESPN in an unfair light. My respect for the company and my colleagues remains unconditional." 
 
 A few minutes later, ESPN issued a followup statement: "Jemele has a right to her personal opinions, but not to publicly share them on a platform that implies that she was in any way speaking on behalf of ESPN. She has acknowledged that her tweets crossed that line and has apologized for doing so. We accept her apology." 
 
 For many months, ESPN has been under unique scrutiny by conservative groups and sports world rivals. 
 
 To people like Tucker Carlson, who dubbed ESPN "Endless Stupid Political Nagging" on Tuesday night, Hill's portrayal of Trump as a racist was just the latest example of liberal bias inside the sports network. 
 
 "Stick to sports" has been a mantra of these critics. "Sports are political" has been one of the comebacks. 
 
 Hill, a rising star at ESPN, has been vociferously critical of President Trump all year long, but her tweetstorm on Monday went further than ever. She called Trump a "bigot," a "threat" and "the most ignorant, offensive president of my lifetime." 
 
 The tweet that garnered the most reaction said: "Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists." 
 
 Hill, an African American woman, followed up with this: "His rise is a direct result of white supremacy. Period." 
 
 Other black journalists and commentators have made similar statements in the past. But Hill's tweets caught fire on social media, partly due to the ongoing arguments over ESPN's political posture. 
 
 Amid an outcry from conservatives on Twitter and Facebook, ESPN reminded people on Tuesday afternoon that Hill's tweets "do not represent the position of ESPN." 
 
 The network alluded to disciplinary action, but did not provide any details. 
 
 "We have addressed this with Jemele and she recognizes her actions were inappropriate," ESPN said. 
 
 Then, on Wednesday, Washington Post White House reporter David Nakamura, who previously covered sports for the paper asked Sanders if the president had a reaction to the controversy. 
 
 "I'm not sure if he's aware" of the tweets, Sanders said, "but I think that's one of the more outrageous comments that anyone could make, and certainly something that I think is a fireable offense by ESPN." 
 
 Sanders said Trump is "committed to working with them to bring the country together. I think that's where we need to be focused, not on outrageous statements like that one." 
 
 Some media commentators said they were disturbed by Sanders' talk of a "fireable offense." 
 
 "Today, the White House press secretary used the people's podium to call for the firing of an individual citizen, @jemelehill. Take that in," the liberal MSNBC host Joy Reid wrote 
 
 There's been a substantial backlash to the backlash, with Hill's supporters saying she described Trump accurately in the original tweetstorm, and should not be reprimanded for having done so. 
 
 Many of Trump's critics say his reaction to the violence in Charlottesville, his pardoning of Joe Arpaio and other decisions have exacerbated racial tensions. 
 
 ESPN critics, on the other hand, said the network's response was too soft, and that a suspension or firing was in order. 
 
 Sanders' remarks on Wednesday are sure to keep the debate raging. 
 
 For her part, Hill hasn't posted anything new on Twitter since ESPN weighed in on Tuesday. 
 
 But some notable names at the network have come to her defense. 
 
 Veteran NFL reporter Jim Trotter wrote to Hill, "Proud to call you a colleague and a friend." Trotter elaborated to Sports Illustrated: "Black folk are tired and we have to recognize some of the things that are going on in this country and we have to be honest about it and meet it head on. If you are black and know the history of our country, you can understand her frustration. It is time we stop pretending it is not true." 
 
 The National Association of Black Journalists also responded by expressing support for Hill, "an award-winning, veteran journalist who has distinguished herself for having insightful opinions and perspectives on a variety of topics." 
 
 The group said it "supports Hill's First Amendment rights on all matters of discussion, within and outside the world of sports, as they do not impinge on her duties as a host and commentator." 
 
 On Wednesday night, several prominent liberal commentators decided to send out tweets echoing Hill's original sentiment. 
 
 Among them was Jelani Cobb of The New Yorker. He wrote, concisely, "Trump is a white supremacist." 
 
 Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Hill had deleted the tweets in question. ||||| Tweet with a location 
 
 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Last month ESPN commentator Jemele Hill, as part of an SI Media Panel on social media interaction in the age of Donald Trump, offered insight into the challenges of being a prominent ESPN analyst discussing social issues on social media. 
 
 “I have to talk myself out of sending certain tweets several times a day,” Hill told SI. “When you're under the leadership of a President that refuses to condemn Nazis and racism, how am I supposed to function the rest of the day and pretend as if I give a shit about Blake Bortles losing his job? That's the conversation I'm having with myself on daily basis. I know there are sports fans looking for me to provide them with an ‘escape,’ but as a woman and person of color, I have no escape from the fact that there are people in charge who seem to be either sickened by my existence or are intent on erasing my dignity in every possible way. So today, my feed is probably a little edgier than it was. It's reflective of all the emotion and conflict I feel. I think others feel the same way.” 
 
 On Monday night Hill tweeted that Trump was “unqualified and unfit to be President” and “a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists.” Those tweets came in the middle of a conversation with readers and were eventually amplified into the larger media ecosystem. The following day, ESPN management released a statement via its PR office saying that comments Hill made about Trump during an interaction with her Twitter followers “do not represent the position of ESPN. We have addressed this with Jemele and she recognizes her actions were inappropriate.” 
 
 More from SI 
 
 ESPN declined to comment on what discipline was given to Hill. She has been off Twitter since Tuesday morning. The company often tells employees to stay off social media after any controversy. 
 
 On the topic of talking politics on Twitter, Hill told SI last month that “it’s very important to make the distinction between politics and commentary, information and discussion of social issues. I find that the majority of what comes into my timeline is related to social issues. Nobody is dying to engage in a discussion about repeal and replace, at least not with me. The percentage of people who want to discuss social issues has, however, increased substantially. Everyone is consumed with what's happening in our country right now. I don’t tweet a lot about politics. I do tweet more about social issues, which I consider to be issues of morality. Racism isn’t politics. Racism is an issue of right and wrong. Tweeting about significant issues that impact marginalized people isn’t politics. That's right and wrong. If I had to guess, I would say I’ve increased my tweets about social issues about 20%. I’ve tried really hard not to let these issues consume my feed, because there are a lot of days where I just want to have fun on Twitter. I want to debate with Power and Insecure fans about what's happening on the show. I want to make jokes and have silly sports arguments, but unfortunately those days feel like they happen less.” 
 
 The issue of where the line exists at a place like ESPN remains unclear. It has a social media policy about politics on social media but that policy is violated daily de facto. As always, the company often finds itself with self-inflicted wounds because of discipline inconsistency. Where Colin Cowherd receives no discipline for comments about Sean Taylor, Bill Simmons is disciplined for comments about Roger Goodell. Where at-will employee Doug Adler loses his tennis job for what appears to be an obvious overreaction by executives, other executives get promotions for presiding over analysts questioning Robert Griffin III’s blackness. 
 
 Where is the line? 
 
 “If I'm answering for myself, my role makes it clear that sharing a political opinion is out of bounds,” said T.J. Quinn, a longtime reporter for ESPN. “That's not just the company's position, it's my own. I'm a reporter, not a columnist or commentator. It's important for my work, which constantly crosses over into the legal and political worlds, that people are dealing with my reporting, not my personality. I know the arguments that objectivity is a myth; I don't agree. I have some deeply held beliefs and in a climate like this it can make you nuts to hold back, but that's what I accepted when I accepted this job. For anyone who is paid for their opinion, however, there is a completely different relationship with the audience. If I ever change roles and anyone wants to pay me for my opinions, my relationship will change as well.” 
 
 “What is permitted, and what I consider to be proper are two different things,” said Bob Ley, the host of ESPN’s Outside The Lines. “The usual standard of saying only what you would with a microphone in your hand apparently no longer applies. These are emotional political times. This is one of the consequences. 
 
 “It’s totally predictable the way the wired nation has split down the middle on Jemele's remarks. Totally predictable. But it falls into a time and space where our network's perceived place in the political landscape has never been more scrutinized.” 
 
 Quinn sent out public support for Hill on his Twitter feed. Asked how he perceived the internal reaction to her comments, he said, “I don't think it's my role to comment on what she said or how the company is dealing with it. No one would care, anyway. What got to me was the racist and misogynist backlash that a colleague has to deal with day in and day out. It's sickening. A tweet in support of a colleague isn't much, but I see colleagues of color and who are women deal with this relentless stream of abusive bullshit every day. The bare minimum is to show those colleagues that they're not alone.” 
 
 Hill is one of the most popular on-air talents at ESPN because she has used her platform and standing to give others opportunities, particularly on her “His and Hers” show where many ESPN-ers have gotten much needed TV reps. Ley, wired to ESPN internally, said he expected there would be mixed reactions within the company—not for Hill the person, but for a front-facing talent tweeting out such an opinion. 
 
 “I love Jemele and consider her a friend, and she has many here,” said Ley. “I've worked with her on a number of shows and projects and she was a guest on OTL even before she joined us. I'm well aware a number of folks will agree with the substance of her comments while others will reject them just as readily. You can love the sinner and hate the sin. It clearly was not a proper use of a company-provided megaphone. There are important responsibilities that come with the many perks, and chief among those these days is realizing your words carry the weight of your platform. You speak for more than yourself.” 
 
 ​ 
 
 “I don't know what the reaction will be and I don't want to speculate,” Quinn said. “But I know that even people who might disagree with her politically have great respect for her as a person and a colleague. She's a pro and smart as hell and works hard and is utterly devoid of ego. There are damned few like her.” 
 
 One of the people I wanted to reach out to was Jim Trotter, one of the most thoughtful voices at ESPN. He clearly spoke for a lot of ESPN employees, particularly those of color, and was emphatic on his support for his colleague. 
 
 “Black folk are tired and we have to recognize some of the things that are going on in this country and we have to be honest about it and meet it head on,” said Trotter, an ESPN senior writer. “If you are black and know the history of our country, you can understand her frustration. It is time we stop pretending it is not true. The reason I tweeted what I tweeted is I know Jemele, I have spent time with her, I know what she is about, and I wanted to say that I support her as a friend and a colleague. If anyone has a problem with that, that is on them.”
– An ESPN host who tweeted about President Trump is finding herself in the White House's crosshairs, with press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders calling the comments a "fireable offense," per CNN. The offending tweet by SportsCenter host Jemele Hill, which she posted Monday: "Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists." She first got pushback on her own Twitter feed, where she doubled down and called Trump an "unfit, bigoted, incompetent moron." Piling on next was ESPN, which issued a statement the next day stating Hill's actions were "inappropriate" and that her remarks on Trump "do not represent the position of ESPN." All of which has led to an online firestorm, with many Trump supporters agreeing with what CNN calls the "highly unusual" White House move to appear to recommend that a Trump critic on a TV network be fired. Others, however—including the National Association of Black Journalists, ESPN co-workers, and other journalists who are posting their own statements on Trump in solidarity—are rushing to the defense of Hill, saying she only spoke the truth and that her comments are protected by the First Amendment. Some note that similar commentary on Trump in the journalism world hasn't been blasted, saying that Hill being black has made her a target. Hill addressed the "elephant in the room" once more late Wednesday on Twitter, posting a short statement that explained what she'd stated were her "personal beliefs" and that her "regret is that my comments and the public way I made them painted ESPN in an unfair light." She added her respect for ESPN and her co-workers "remains unconditional." (The New York Times touches on accusations that ESPN has become too "politically correct.")