Update 6/6/20: Whitlock gave a longer interview to Outkick the Coverage in which he provided his insightful perspective on a variety of issues.
About leaving FS1: “When I was presented parameters for my return to FS1, and then I looked at other options with more upside, control and freedom, it became clear returning to FS1 would be fear-based, not opportunity-based. I reject fear.”
About sports pundits lacking daily news writing experience: “A lot of the people talking about sports on TV and across the internet have never legitimately covered a sports team or league. They don’t know what they don’t know. The old newspaper model you had to earn the right to voice an opinion. You had to show the ability to develop sources, break news, be informed and be creative before you were handed a column and the right to have a published opinion. Now you just need to know how to hit the send button or spew a hot take. We’re getting hot takes from former bartenders. The takes aren’t informed. Everyone has a take on complicated racial matters and we allow anyone to say what they want. It’s crazy. I’m talking about black and white broadcasters. Everyone is crowd-sourcing their racial opinions through Twitter. It’s irresponsible. It’s a contributing factor to the chaos we have now in America.”
About the Drew Brees controversy: “Brees has every right to feel that way about the flag and the national anthem. He’s not alone in feeling that way. Trust me, many black athletes and people share his sentiment. His belief in no way diminishes the cause of supporting justice for George Floyd. It’s nonsensical to argue that kneeling during the playing of the national anthem and the flying of the flag has absolutely nothing to do with the flag and the anthem. Athletes are addicted to growing a social media following. Drew Brees’ comments gave everyone an opportunity to use him as a tool to grow their following. There used to be a time when you disagreed with someone’s harmless opinion and you just rolled your eyes and moved on to more important matters. That time has disappeared. We’re all now just fodder for each other’s social media outrage and righteousness. Social media is the real pandemic killing America and freedom. Social media is going to destroy football. People will applaud football’s death/fall until the moment they realize social media mobs will destroy absolutely everything we love about America.”
About the sports world’s reaction to the George Floyd death while in police custody: “What happened to George Floyd is a heinous, criminal tragedy. There is universal agreement on that. There should be a robust discussion on what should happen in the aftermath and what more we can do to prevent tragedies like that from ever happening to anyone living in America. We’re unlikely to have that discussion. And the sports world, a traditional leader in promoting racial progress, won’t be an authentic leader in that discussion. Our collective addiction to the social-media scoreboard controlled by Silicon Valley and influenced by countries interested in destabilizing the United States through the promotion of racial disharmony has disrupted sports as a unifier. Worse, it has effectively outlawed/criminalized public diversity of thought. The risk is too great for most. Saying ‘all lives matter’ can cost you your career. That’s un-American. It’s fascist. It speaks to the power of the social media mob. Freedom of thought and expression is at the very core of American freedom. People are being forced to live in fear of expressing what they think. Our beliefs are being crowd-sourced by algorithms concocted in Northern California and exploited by Russia and China.”
About Twitter: “Twitter is a platform intended to promote outrage, not solutions or honest dialogue. We can’t have honest, robust conversations about difficult subjects because the people leading those discussions in the media, in the sports world and in the celebrity world are way too concerned about their social media following…Today’s social-media-addicted influencers cannot take the risks of honest, informed, nuanced commentary, especially as it relates to race. There’s a long history of communist-run, highly-racist, non-diverse foreign powers smearing America’s melting pot as ground zero for racial bigotry. Social media is headquarters for that propaganda campaign. America is imperfect when it comes to race. However, we are light years ahead of our foreign critics. Global influencers and their wannabes can’t tell you that. China doesn’t allow it….I take a lot of heat from ‘Black Twitter’ and the people fearful of ‘Black Twitter.’ Black Twitter is an algorithm controlled by white liberals in Silicon Valley. Black Twitter is a tool used to police the thoughts of the media. White media is scared of being labeled racist by Black Twitter. Black media is afraid of being labeled a sellout by Black Twitter. I don’t think Black Twitter is an accurate representation of the black community. ..I think Twitter has made it very difficult for sports-media executives to support sports writers and broadcasters who don’t adhere to left-wing talking points. The noise of Twitter drowns out common sense and hard data. Twitter would make you believe my point of view is despised by sports fans. Yet SFY has been growing an audience while most others have been losing audience…Sports fans are thirsting for an honest point of view, free of the agenda dictated by social media.”
About activist athletes Colin Kaepernick and LeBron James: “What was [Kaepernick] right about? That police brutality is bad? I’ve never met anyone who believes police brutality is good. Police brutality is a societal issue that impacts all demographics. Police brutality is an abuse of power and authority. Racializing the discussion of police brutality prevents us from framing the discussion properly and framing it in a way that moves us toward progress. It’s a mistake to trivialize the heinous crime that happened to George Floyd by making it a discussion about a quarterback who used the issue to promote his Nike brand and a signature gym shoe.”
“[LeBron] said we (black men) are hunted every day, every time we step out of the house or something close to that. It’s a ridiculous statement, not supported by a single fact. It’s a statement that promotes an irrational fear. Fear and emotion are the enemy of rational thought and rational behavior. Social media promotes an anecdote-driven worldview rather than an information-and-fact-driven worldview. Social media says: ‘Look at these 15 anecdotes we’ve strung together over the last seven years. These 15-20 anecdotes prove that you should live in fear of being killed by police. Ignore the seven years of evidence, data and research that prove you’re just as likely to be killed by a bolt of lightning.’ Let me repeat. What happened to George Floyd is a heinous, criminal tragedy…Social media, its primary influencers, the blogosphere and the mainstream media all seem determined to promote irrational fear. They seem to want all people emotional and irrational. Irrational and emotional people surrender their rights more easily than rational and non-emotional people. Irrational and emotional people, especially when 40 million of them are newly unemployed, will choose rioting, violence and looting rather than a strategic response to injustice. Irrational and emotional people will unwittingly allow themselves to be used as cover for the violent, destructive behavior of anarchists. Irrational and emotional people will more easily buy propaganda spewed by communist countries trying to destabilize America. Is LeBron an effective voice? Yes, I think for his primary employer, Nike, LeBron is an effective voice. He’s an influencer for Nike. If you believe Nike, a global corporation with enormous ties to China, is an authentic champion of human rights and justice for poor, working-class people, then LeBron is an effective voice for social justice. If you think Nike is a global corporation interested solely in its bottom line, then you might question LeBron’s actions as it relates to social justice.”
About players kneeling once the sports leagues go back into operation: “I expect athletes to lean into public gestures. Social media will demand that they do and they will follow orders. But I also think many athletes will involve themselves in actions behind the scenes that will promote genuine progress. The on-field gestures will no doubt bother some traditional sports fans. Police brutality is a complex issue that cannot be improved by symbolism and gestures on a football field.”
Update 6/5/20: In a Q&A with Front Office Sports, Whitlock revealed that Fox Sports offered him a two-year contract extension but without a raise (“Not a bad offer considering the times we live in.”). The parting seems amicable based on these public comments, but he expressed disappointment, however, that Fox Sports prioritized marketing and promoting Undisputed “and getting a return on the investment in Skip Bayless” instead of SFY, but the latter was nonetheless growing its audience organically. “I had a great, rewarding experience for the last four years hosting and creating the SFY show that exists today.”
The self-described “home-run hitter” who is taking “another swing for the fences” also confirmed the New York Post report linked below that he intends to “tale risks and capitalize on my brand” by launching his own media business along the lines of what Joe Rogan, Adam Corolla, and other others in the podcast space have created. “They’ve leveraged their audience into platforms they control. That’s what I want to do. I’m late. But better late than never…At 53, it’s go-time. I’m in my prime. And my unifying message and point of view are more valuable in this era of social-media-driven racial polarization. People want to know how we can all get along. I’m the only person in sports media offering a plausible pathway forward.”
As an aside, Jason Whitlock explained why never wrote columns for FoxSports.com the second time around and instead published in the Wall Street Journal. “By the time I returned [to Fox Sports] in 2015, social media, Twitter in particular, had dramatically changed the perception of columnists like me. It became much more difficult and problematic to have middle-of-the-road, traditional views. Objectivity had no value. Independent thought lost value. Sports journalism became agenda-driven. Especially for the people who flocked to the lane I created, the lane of blending sports commentary with social commentary. Everything became agenda-driven. There was and is major blowback for writing things that don’t stick to the left-wing agenda.”
Jason Whitlock has ended his second run as a Fox Sports employee. With his contract running out, he and the network were reportedly unable to come to terms on a new deal.
Whether he was asking too much or the television channel was low-balling him is unknown at this point. And it’s perhaps a matter of semantics whether this constitutes a firing or simply a non-renewal, which became effective on Friday, June 1. You may have noticed that news and entertainment networks love to report on high-profile contract negotiations except those under their own roof.
The now ex- co-host of Speak For Yourself on FS1 apparently could be speaking for himself literally by trying to launch his own “direct-to-consumer” media platform, the New York Post suggested. Over his career, Whitlock refused to get woke, and through this potential new venture, he is unlikely to go broke.
“Friday was Jason Whitlock’s last day with FOX Sports. We thank Jason for all of his hard work and dedication to the network, and we wish him the best in his future endeavors,” the network announced in somewhat cold statement.
This is a huge setback for FS1, which has been making inroads in the ratings as it seeks to compete with ESPN (where Whitlock also worked).
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Without games, it’s been a tough time for sports talk generally as far as content is concerned.
Unless you like NASCAR, JasonWhitlock’s departure means the channel is hardly worth watching, and SFY is just another boring, irrelevant sports program that echoes what all the other shows are saying about the topics of the day.
According to Cleveland.com (and depending on how you define popular vs. unpopular), “He is known for his outspoken style and spicy, sometimes controversial takes on FS1, where his conservative-friendly viewpoints occasionally went against the grain of popular opinion.”
During panel discussions the often veered into so-called social justice issues and athlete activism, the former Kansas City Star columnist, 53, often advanced a contrarian point of view and takes grounded in reality rather than wokeness and that served as the voice of reason on SFY.
His “Whitlogues” — which you can find on social media — were usually superb
For example, he wasn’t shy about calling out hypocritical, anti-Trump NBA luminaries who fell silent when it came to communist China’s crackdown on the peaceful, pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.
Describing himself as non-political and a non-voter, he is one of the very few journalists covering college or pro athletics, at least on television, who articulates a different view from the pandering, virtual-signaling groupthink of the politically correct, liberal sports industry which takes its cues from Silicon Valley Big Tech monoliths.
That’s why blue-check Twitter is celebrating his departure. That fits because Whitlock was never a fan of athletes’ desperate attempt to gain Twitter applause.
The only person on TV who compares in any way is “radical moderate” Clay Travis, who appears on in-hiatus sports gambling show Lock It In.
Travis reserves his criticism of the left-wing sports industry primarily to Outkick the Coverage blog (which first reported on June 1 that Whitlock and FS1 were parting ways) and Outkick the Show Periscope broadcast and to a lesser extent on his Fox Sports radio show.
As an aside, Jason Whitlock is one of many individuals who have lost significant amounts of weight with intermittent fasting plus regular exercise and eating one healthy meal a day. Eliminating obesity can bean effective way to boost the immune system in time for the next pandemic. (Note: Always check with a healthcare professional before embarking on diet and fitness regimen.)
