There are three characters in this case: a victim, a coward and a villain.
The victim is broadcaster Braiden Bell, who was the Portland Trail Blazers play-by-play announcer for less than 12 hours before the team fired him Thursday for tweets he posted in 2012 and 2013… when he was 15 years old.
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.
And then there’s the villain: KGW in Portland, the TV station that dug up those tweets and used them to try and ruin a man’s life.
Let’s start with the ugly part — the tweets themselves. They are certainly nothing to condone, and are the kind of posts that should have given any of Bell’s teenage friends pause at the time.
The first was from November 2012, when Bell wrote, “Gotta give a shoutout to all the big girls out there and those closet w—-s #BigUps.”
The next was less than a month later, when Bell tweeted, “I’m not racist at all…But not gonna lie…Asian people piss me off! Hahaha #Honest”
The third was from February 2013, when Bell tweeted, “We got a sl-t alert on aisle 10.” And the final tweet KGW reported came less than two weeks later, when Bell typed “Girls these nights…Smh #ThirstyForTheD.”
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’t broadcast to the world. As Jason Whitlock said on X: “Virtually everything that came out of my mouth at 15 was a fireable offense. Amazing, sad story.”
There is a reason we do not let 15-year-olds drive independently. Just as there’s a reason they have to wait three years before voting. Their minds aren’t fully developed. Their mouths are dormant volcanoes. To hold adults forever responsible for their words — not actions — as teenagers is an exercise in cruelty.
And that’s just what the KGW reporting team was on this story — cruel.
Exactly what public good does unearthing these tweets and reporting them to the Blazers accomplish? How does dragging this man’s name just after he landed his dream job serve the greater Portland community?
America’s confidence in the media is hovering at an all-time low. Stories like this only amplify that distrust…and it appears the KGW team knows this.
Before Friday, Devon Haskins — the lead reporter on this story — 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.
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.
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But not as embarrassing as the Blazers firing Bell the same day they hired him.
I’ve seen some critics of the team say their PR leaders fell short by not doing their due diligence on Bell. But according to KGW’s 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’s not like Bell came out of nowhere. He was already calling games for the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and G League’s Valley Suns, and there didn’t seem to be any indications he held racist or misogynistic views.
Former Arizona Republic sports columnist Paola Boivin posted on X, “Braiden’s tweets at 15 do not reflect the person I know. I’m a big believer in not letting a poor decision or short timespan define a person’s body of life work. I used to be more righteous. As I matured, I learned that decisions in youth are often driven by bravado or surroundings.”
If only the Blazers — who just traded for Ja Morant, a player who was suspended 25 games for flashing a gun on an Instagram Live broadcast — were as empathetic.
The truth is, the public is generally forgiving. Remember when comedian Shane Gillis was fired from “Saturday Night Live” after it was discovered he used the Asian slur “c—k” on a podcast? He’s now selling out stadiums and has hosted SNL twice. Kevin Hart, meanwhile, was fired as the 2018 Oscars host for a an unearthed homophobic comment. He has since hosted the Roast of Tom Brady and makes $20 million per movie. And the gaffes by those two came when they were grown men, not three years into puberty. One sincere apology from Bell and Blazers fans would have moved on.
I suppose the big takeaway from this is to understand that the internet is forever and will come back to haunt you if you’re not careful. Doesn’t matter how old your posts were or how much you’ve matured since. There are always vultures circling, and always cowards caving.
