To Whom It May Concern:

When Post-Gazette reporter Paul Zeise said, on KDKA’s “Sports Showdown”, that “[i]t’s really a sad day in this country when somehow … Michael Vick would have been better off raping a woman if you look at the outcry of what happened”, both corporations were quick to apologize for his comments. KDKA called the remarks “inappropriate and insensitive comments that do not reflect the view of KDKA management and staff.” The Post-Gazette called the remarks “insensitive and offensive” and said that the remarks “do not represent the view of the Post-Gazette”. (Source).

I have to ask, therefore, what the view of KDKA and the Post-Gazette is. Do these companies believe that it is entirely appropriate for an athlete who is accused of abusing and murdering animals to receive a punishment that is greater than the punishment of an athlete who is accused of raping a woman? How is it insensitive for Zeise to point out this hypocrisy in our society, that we apparently believe that it’s perfectly okay for an accused rapist to attend his own rape trial then fly across the country to play in an NBA game, but if a man is accused of abusing animals, he should be suspended for an entire year?

KDKA has said that Zeise will not be invited back to “Sports Showdown.” He is, in effect, “suspended” from the show. I hope you won’t mind if I take a moment to point out what this tells me about KDKA’s position (I will explain my reasoning for each point, as well).

KDKA apparently believes that it is entirely appropriate for a man to be suspended from his job for an entire year because he (allegedly) abused animals. After all, when Paul Alexander stated that it was entirely appropriate for that to be the case, KDKA did not find it necessary to apologize for those comments.

KDKA apparently believes that it is entirely inappropriate for a man to be suspended from his job for an entire year because he (allegedly) raped a woman. When Paul Zeise said that it was a “sad day” that the punishment for (being accused of) rape was less than that for (being accused of) abusing animals, KDKA apologized, and said the comments did not reflect their stance. Therefore, KDKA must believe that the appropriate punishment for (being accused of) rape is a punishment less than the punishment for (being accused of) abusing animals.

Based on those first two, I think it’s safe to say that KDKA apparently believes that rape is a less serious crime than animal abuse.

Finally, KDKA apparently believes it is entirely appropriate for a man to be suspended indefinitely for disagreeing with KDKA on the above two points on the air. After all, KDKA has stated they will no longer be inviting Paul Zeise back to the show because of his statements that implied he felt that the punishment for (being accused of) rape should be greater than or equal to the punishment for (being accused of) cruelty to animals.

There is less evidence by which I can infer the stance of the Post-Gazette. Since they had no reason to apologize for the words of Paul Alexander, the first KDKA stance cannot be applied to the Post-Gazette. As I have seen no evidence that they plan to punish Paul Zeise for believing that rape is as bad or worse than animal abuse, I cannot state with any certainty that they support sacking him for airing that belief publicly. The only stance of the Post-Gazette’s that I can infer is that the Post-Gazette does not agree that rape is as bad or worse than animal abuse, and that they feel that if an employee does feel that way, the newspaper should apologize for him and distance themselves from that opinion.

If the companies had restricted themselves to calling Zeise’s comments insensitive, I would not have given the issue a second thought. Both rape and animal abuse are horrific crimes, and one should take care when discussing them, especially on television, to not sound as though one is endorsing either crime. Zeise’s wording left much to be desired, and (especially without context) the comments could be seen as insensitive. When the companies then proceeded to distance themselves from the opinions expressed in Zeise’s comments, though, I feel that they went too far, unless, of course, both KDKA and the Post-Gazette believe that animal cruelty is in fact a more serious crime than rape. If that is the case, the management of both companies should be ashamed of themselves.

Thank you for your time.
-Robin S.

http://onestackmind.com

Yesterday, I wrote about the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and KDKA-TV, who were quick to distance themselves from a sports reporter who said that it was a bad thing that abusing animals was considered more serious than raping a woman. Sure, his phrasing left something to be desired, but the Post-Gazette and KDKA rushed to apologize and insist that they didn’t agree with him, apparently without actually parsing the sentence to determine what it was they were actually disagreeing with.

Today, I’d like to look at a piece by Ronald Brownstein of the LA Times. Brownstein takes offense at Bush’s protest against the SCHIP. (If you’d care for a more indepth look at what Brownstein says, see Patterico’s post on the topic; I’m only focusing on one sentence.)

In that opinion piece, Brownstein wrote: “In fact, Congress is moving responsibly to remove a blot on the nation: the 8 million children without health insurance.”

According to Brownstein’s sentence, what is congress trying to remove? A blot. What is that blot? 8 million children. Yes, he modifies the noun “children” with a prepositional phrase that tells us which children Congress is trying to remove, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s saying that Congress wants to “remove” (by killing? Deporting? The sentence isn’t clear) 8 million children!

Of course, that’s absurd. What he means is that Congress is trying to find a way to give these children some form of health insurance, thus removing the condition of being uninsured from the children, but that isn’t what he said.

Something I’ve heard from time to time (usually from a conservative commentator, lamenting the fact that a liberal has hijacked a word to mean something it doesn’t) is that “Words mean things.” Similarly, sentences mean things, and it bothers me that people who ostensibly write sentences for a living don’t seem to grasp that concept.

That’s what Paul Zeise said about Michael Vick, with regards to the recent dogfighting scandal:

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter Paul Zeise made the comments Sunday night on the “Sports Showdown” show on KDKA-TV, a CBS affiliate. He was disagreeing with another panelist who said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell should suspend Vick for the rest of the season because he was indicted on federal dogfighting charges July 17.

“It’s really a sad day in this country when somehow … Michael Vick would have been better off raping a woman if you look at the outcry of what happened,” Zeise said. “Had he done that, he probably would have been suspended for four games and he’d be back on the field. But because this has become a political issue, all of a sudden the commissioner has lost his stomach for it.”

Zeise later apologized for the comments, and KDKA said he wouldn’t be invited back as a panelist on the show. Zeise’s primary employer, the Pittsburg Post-Gazette, was quick to call his statements “insensitive and offensive”, and to point out that they “do not represent the view of the Post-Gazette”.

I agree that there is an extremely offensive air to his comments, but it is not Zeise who is giving the offense here.

When other major sports figures have been accused of rape, it might have made a pretty big splash on the news (see: Kobe Bryant), but how many of them were suspended for even a handful of games — before they were even brought to trial?

If Zeise had instead worded his comment as, “It’s a really sad thing in this country that somehow Michael Vick would get less punishment if he had been accused of rape than if he were accused of this,” would there have been an outcry? I’m all for holding our prominent athletes to a high standard of behavior, especially given the fact that many children still look up to these athletes as role models, and I think it’s disgusting that we treat cruel treatment of animals as though it’s orders of magnitude worse than rape.

Of course, I’m assuming that the outcry here is that Zeise used the phrase “better off raping a woman”, which, out of context, does sound bad. Given the context, though, the comment makes sense — Zeise is not praising or supporting the fact that (being accused of) raping a woman would have gotten Vick less of a punishment from the NFL (and likely less press); he is saying that it is a “sad day” because of that fact. It’s altogether possible that all of the outcry is from PETA-type groups who think that it’s appalling that Zeise is saying that the crime of abusing and murdering dogs should be seen as a lesser crime than that of raping a woman. If it is these groups causing the outrage, then they should be ashamed of themselves.