Sorry/not sorry
Good Wednesday morning to all. And, yes, I almost wrote "Tuesday" there, given my general confusion about what day it is.
I love a long weekend, but, wow, do we all pay for those when we have them! On top of that, I'm going to take a few days off work starting Friday, so I expect to continue to be a little off my game for a few days!
Unless you've been without access to news, you know that comedian and television actress Roseanne Barr learned yesterday that, yes, bad jokes and satirical comments that go too far can and do have consequences. I won't replay the blow-by-blow timeline of it here, but since her revived television show is aired on ABC, a network owned by the family-friendly Walt Disney Company, the final result was, in my mind, inevitable.
Supposedly since making the comments on Twitter that started all of this, Barr apologized in what appeared to be a "you'd better get online to issue an apology" apology that seemed somewhat insincere. She has since apologized further, and finally acknowledged that her thoughtless actions cost quite a few people who worked on her show their jobs.
I told my wife that every time something like this happens within a Disney-controlled network or property that Walt Disney turns in his grave, or something to that effect. And I truly believe that, that Disney so carefully cultivated an image of family and purveying what's best for family consumption that he would have taken the very action that ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey did.
But let's think about some other famous folk who were caught doing something they shouldn't have, apologized and got to retain their positions. Or didn't ever apologize and got away with it.
If you'll recall, recently Fox News and conservative pundit Laura Ingraham was in the spotlight for the wrong reasons, as she said some snarky things about one of the more visible survivors of the Parkland school shootings. She lost many of her program's advertisers, issued a lukewarm apology, but ultimately Fox News retained her and her program is still on the air each weeknight.
Most everyone who's been swept up in the #MeToo movement and its aftermath has issued an apology of one form or another. Many lost their jobs and won't get them back, like NBC's Matt Lauer, and Charlie Rose, formerly of CBS and PBS. Others are defiant, like Harvey Weinstein, who was just indicted last week on charges related to some of his past conduct.
This happens to athletes pretty commonly, as they are not camera-ready performers in many cases, and say things in interviews that they shouldn't. The good ones simply apologize, knowing they're in the wrong, and the lesser ones generally claim they were misquoted and try to move on.
Starbucks has apologized extensively for what happened to two black men in Philadelphia recently, in which they were awaiting the arrival of a friend, denied the use of the restroom and ultimately were asked by police officers who were summoned to the scene why they wouldn't leave. Starbucks took the additional step yesterday by closing their approximately 8,000 stores to conduct racial bias training for all of its associates. I'd say that constitutes a proper response to a mistake, but that's just the start.
Then there's Donald Trump. As several people more famous and widely read than I have already pointed out, Trump championed the "birther" movement, in which he claimed not only that former President Barack Obama wasn't born in this country, but that Trump had proof of it. This continued for quite a while, and all the while Trump was the star and host of the NBC reality show "The Apprentice" and "Celebrity Apprentice." Some have offered the opinion that if NBC had held Trump to a standard of conduct requiring him to not only cease and desist but also to apologize or face losing his spot on this program that he might not have persisted so long with these claims, and might not have used it as a springboard into the political world.
That's something we'll never know.
I love a long weekend, but, wow, do we all pay for those when we have them! On top of that, I'm going to take a few days off work starting Friday, so I expect to continue to be a little off my game for a few days!
Unless you've been without access to news, you know that comedian and television actress Roseanne Barr learned yesterday that, yes, bad jokes and satirical comments that go too far can and do have consequences. I won't replay the blow-by-blow timeline of it here, but since her revived television show is aired on ABC, a network owned by the family-friendly Walt Disney Company, the final result was, in my mind, inevitable.
Supposedly since making the comments on Twitter that started all of this, Barr apologized in what appeared to be a "you'd better get online to issue an apology" apology that seemed somewhat insincere. She has since apologized further, and finally acknowledged that her thoughtless actions cost quite a few people who worked on her show their jobs.
I told my wife that every time something like this happens within a Disney-controlled network or property that Walt Disney turns in his grave, or something to that effect. And I truly believe that, that Disney so carefully cultivated an image of family and purveying what's best for family consumption that he would have taken the very action that ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey did.
But let's think about some other famous folk who were caught doing something they shouldn't have, apologized and got to retain their positions. Or didn't ever apologize and got away with it.
If you'll recall, recently Fox News and conservative pundit Laura Ingraham was in the spotlight for the wrong reasons, as she said some snarky things about one of the more visible survivors of the Parkland school shootings. She lost many of her program's advertisers, issued a lukewarm apology, but ultimately Fox News retained her and her program is still on the air each weeknight.
Most everyone who's been swept up in the #MeToo movement and its aftermath has issued an apology of one form or another. Many lost their jobs and won't get them back, like NBC's Matt Lauer, and Charlie Rose, formerly of CBS and PBS. Others are defiant, like Harvey Weinstein, who was just indicted last week on charges related to some of his past conduct.
This happens to athletes pretty commonly, as they are not camera-ready performers in many cases, and say things in interviews that they shouldn't. The good ones simply apologize, knowing they're in the wrong, and the lesser ones generally claim they were misquoted and try to move on.
Starbucks has apologized extensively for what happened to two black men in Philadelphia recently, in which they were awaiting the arrival of a friend, denied the use of the restroom and ultimately were asked by police officers who were summoned to the scene why they wouldn't leave. Starbucks took the additional step yesterday by closing their approximately 8,000 stores to conduct racial bias training for all of its associates. I'd say that constitutes a proper response to a mistake, but that's just the start.
Then there's Donald Trump. As several people more famous and widely read than I have already pointed out, Trump championed the "birther" movement, in which he claimed not only that former President Barack Obama wasn't born in this country, but that Trump had proof of it. This continued for quite a while, and all the while Trump was the star and host of the NBC reality show "The Apprentice" and "Celebrity Apprentice." Some have offered the opinion that if NBC had held Trump to a standard of conduct requiring him to not only cease and desist but also to apologize or face losing his spot on this program that he might not have persisted so long with these claims, and might not have used it as a springboard into the political world.
That's something we'll never know.
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