Basketbawful reader Jeremy sent me the following image in an email with a subject line of "Poor choice of words for a headline about the Olympics in China." Wow. No kidding. (Note: If I have to explain it, I'm not going to explain it. You know?)

olympics basketball 1

Jeremy continued: "I saw this on ESPN's homepage when Team USA beat Argentina. I refreshed the page a minute later and the headline changed to 'A Way In?'"

olympics basketball 2

I have no idea what goes on behind the scenes at ESPN. Like, how many people manage the Web site, how articles and headlines get edited, how quickly content can be changed, etc. Every time I consider it, I imagine an army of technicians flipping switches and spinning dials on complex machinery covered in multi-colored, blinking lights. Kind of like NORAD. It would be interesting to know how unintended mistakes like this happen, and how they get fixed.

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10 Comments:
Anonymous Anonymous said...
i imagine they put people who make mistakes in front of a firing squad.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Is Pau Gasol supplementing his income by writing ESPN.com's headlines?

Blogger AnacondaHL said...
It usually involves JavaScript and a sarlac pit.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
This was funny but not really that big a deal. If it had have been an article about Team China giving us a hard time, maybe it should throw up warning signals, but 'chink' is a legitimate word, even if it has another derogatory meaning. If someone said Allen Iverson is niggardly with the basketball are they racist or just idiots who use outdated words to express themselves? Usually I'd assume the latter.

I think looking at the title and immediately thinking "chink" in the racist sense is more indicative of the reader's state of mind than anything else. Or just a hint at bad scores on the SATs.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
LOL I actually remember reading that but didn't register it as a racial slur at the time
but yea poor choice of words

Anonymous Anonymous said...
"Great googily moogily. "[from the guy spraypainting the endzone for the "Chink Filet Peach Bowl..."]

Blogger Joe said...
new phrase is homophobic imo!!!!

Anonymous Anonymous said...
anacondahl, i think you're my new personal hero. great star wars drop.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
The funny thing is that the original title is much, much better, or would be if political correctness wasn't such an issue. "A way in" sounds like it was written by a second-grader.

How about "an unexpected flaw?" or "a crucial shortcoming?"

Hell, they could've just replaced "chink" with "kink".

Anonymous Anonymous said...
I got a good laugh out of it.

And LOL @ "chink Fil-A"