Less than three months into her ESPN tenure, Katie Nolan already is testing boundaries at a network that desperately wants its personalities to stick to sports. During an appearance this week on Viceland’s “Desus & Mero” program, ESPN’s Katie Nolan called President Trump a “stupid person.”
Nolan spends much of the profanity-filled clip answering questions about her time at ESPN and various other stops in her career before turning at the 13-minute mark to talk about whether certain hand gestures signify some sort of racist code. Nolan at first says something that is bleeped out entirely — a curious move, considering the un-bleeped profanity that surrounds her comments — before saying clearly that Trump is always giving a thumbs-up because he’s “a f—— stupid person.”
ESPN issued revised guidelines on social media and political commentary late last year. It tells its employees that they “should refrain from overt partisanship or endorsement of particular candidates” and should “avoid personal attacks and inflammatory rhetoric.” The guidelines also mandate that “communication with producers and editors must take place prior to commentary on any political and social issues to manage volume and ensure a fair and effective presentation.”
The network said it has spoken to Nolan about her appearance on the show.
“We have looked into the totality of Nolan’s comments, they were inappropriate and we have addressed it with her,” Jay Jay Nesheim, ESPN’s senior director of communications, said in an email to The Post.
In October, before the new guidelines were released, ESPN suspended “SportsCenter” personality Jemele Hill for what the network deemed a second recent violation of its former social media policy. After Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones told his players they would be benched if they did not stand for the national anthem, Hill tweeted that NFL fans could choose not to patronize the team’s vendors and advertisers. She previously had tweeted that Trump was a “white supremacist.”
Nolan began working at ESPN in mid-October after a four-year stint at Fox Sports. She hosted the late-night “Garbage Time” program on Fox Sports 1, earning plaudits for her free-spirited style and an Emmy for Outstanding Social TV Experience in 2016. Since joining ESPN, she has appeared on shows such as “Highly Questionable” with Dan Le Batard and one episode of a podcast that has yet to be officially named. It was scheduled to make its full debut Wednesday.
In December, ESPN’s front-facing employees attended a mandatory meeting at the company’s headquarters in Bristol, Conn., to discuss the network’s future and review its new policies on social media and political commentary.
“ESPN is a journalistic organization — not a political organization. We should do nothing to undermine that position,” Kevin Merida, editor in chief of ESPN’s Undefeated imprint, told the crowd. “ESPN’s focus is sports. By and large we are not experts on politics, health care policies, terrorism, commerce — that’s not what we do.”
“Our audience is not looking for our opinions on the general news of the day,” added Merida, who was a longtime writer and editor at The Washington Post before joining ESPN. “And believe me, I get it. It can sometimes be difficult to control impulses or ignore trolls, but that’s what we’re called to do for each other.”
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