There are three characters in this case: a victim, a coward and a villain.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The victim is broadcaster Braiden Bell, who was the Portland Trail Blazers<\/a> play-by-play announcer for less than 12 hours before the team fired him Thursday for tweets he posted in 2012 and 2013\u2026 when he was 15 years old.<\/p>\n The coward is the Blazers, who were informed of said tweets and ousted Bell immediately, presumably out of fear of the ever-ravenous outrage mob.<\/a><\/p>\n NBA\u2019S PORTLAND TRAIL BLAZERS HIRE ANNOUNCER, THEN FIRE HIM HOURS LATER OVER TWEETS FROM HIS TEENAGE YEARS<\/a><\/p>\n And then there\u2019s the villain: KGW in Portland, the TV station that dug up those tweets and used them to try and ruin a man\u2019s life.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s start with the ugly part \u2014 the tweets themselves. They are certainly nothing to condone, and are the kind of posts that should have given any of Bell\u2019s teenage friends pause at the time.<\/p>\n The first was from November 2012, when Bell wrote, \u201cGotta give a shoutout to all the big girls out there and those closet w\u2014-s #BigUps.\u201d<\/p>\n The next was less than a month later, when Bell tweeted, \u201cI\u2019m not racist at all\u2026But not gonna lie\u2026Asian people piss me off! Hahaha #Honest\u201d<\/p>\n The third was from February 2013, when Bell tweeted, \u201cWe got a sl-t alert on aisle 10.\u201d And the final tweet KGW reported came less than two weeks later, when Bell typed \u201cGirls these nights\u2026Smh #ThirstyForTheD.\u201d<\/p>\n Again, these are a long way from pleasant. And if Bell was shamed by peers for his words at the time, it would have been justified. But I think most of us who saw this story were thankful that our stupidest or most offensive comments as adolescents weren\u2019t broadcast to the world. As Jason Whitlock said on X: \u201cVirtually everything that came out of my mouth at 15 was a fireable offense. Amazing, sad story.\u201d<\/p>\n CRAIG CARTON CALLS OUT CANCEL CULTURE AFTER PORTLAND TRAIL BLAZERS CUT TIES WITH NEWLY HIRED ANNOUNCER<\/a><\/p>\n There is a reason we do not let 15-year-olds drive independently. Just as there\u2019s a reason they have to wait three years before voting. Their minds aren\u2019t fully developed. Their mouths are dormant volcanoes. To hold adults forever responsible for their words \u2014 not actions \u2014 as teenagers is an exercise in cruelty.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s just what the KGW reporting team<\/a> was on this story \u2014 cruel.<\/p>\n Exactly what public good does unearthing these tweets and reporting them to the Blazers accomplish? How does dragging this man\u2019s name just after he landed his dream job serve the greater Portland community?<\/p>\n America\u2019s confidence in the media is hovering at an all-time low. Stories like this only amplify that distrust\u2026and it appears the KGW team knows this.<\/p>\n Before Friday, Devon Haskins \u2014 the lead reporter on this story \u2014 had his email address displayed on his X account. It has since been scrubbed and his DMs are closed. KGW news director John Tierney, whose byline was included on the report, also removed his email address after this story blew up. A third reporter, Alma McCarty, closed off her X inbox, too, while Jared Cowley, the final byline on the story, has no public contact info, either.<\/p>\n These are not the actions of media members standing firm on a story they believe in amid public backlash. These are the actions of cowards who know they erred and are running for cover. Embarrassing.<\/p>\n ZERO BS. JUST DAKICH. TAKE THE DON\u2019T @ ME PODCAST ON THE ROAD. DOWNLOAD NOW!<\/a><\/p>\n But not as embarrassing as the Blazers firing Bell the same day they hired him.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve seen some critics of the team say their PR leaders fell short by not doing their due diligence on Bell. But according to KGW\u2019s reporting, Bell had over 30,000 tweets, and not one since February 2013 could be construed as offensive. Is it really a PR failure to not sift through 14 years of social media posts? It\u2019s not like Bell came out of nowhere. He was already calling games for the WNBA\u2019s Phoenix Mercury and G League\u2019s Valley Suns, and there didn\u2019t seem to be any indications he held racist or misogynistic views.<\/p>\n