The Portland Trail Blazers have refused to rehire a broadcaster after firing him for tweets he made as a 15-year-old.
The NBA team hired Braiden Bell as play-by-play announcer on October 1st, but fired him the same day after social media posts he made as a teenager became public.
“The Portland Trail Blazers have zero tolerance for racist, sexist, or harmful comments. Social media posts made by our recently announced play-by-play broadcaster are in clear violation of team and league policies, as well as our values and expectations. Therefore, we will not be moving forward with this broadcaster,” the team said.
According to The Athletic, the Trail Blazers said it stood by its statement and had no further comments.
“We wish Mr. Bell the best,” the team noted.
KGW, a Portland-based news organization, published a story about tweets Bell made as a teenager.
Tweets included in the article showed Bell saying, “Gotta give a shoutout to all the big girls out there and those closet whores.” He posted this on November 30th, 2012,
On another social media post, Bell said, “I’m not racist at all.. But not gonna lie.. Asian people piss me off! Hahaha #Honest.” He tweeted this on December 9th, 2012.
Two months later, in February 2013, Bell made two tweets saying, “We got a slut alert on aisle 10,” and that “Girls these nights… Smh. #ThirstyForTheD.”
KGW noted in its article that most of Bell’s tweets were about sports.
In response to the tweets that became public, Bell said he was “deeply sorry for the language” he used on the social media website.
“These tweets, while wrong, were written by me 14 years ago while I was only 15 years old and have no reflection of who I am today. I do not take lightly any harm it causes now. I regret this being the first impression to many of you online, but I can take solace in knowing that the people who truly know me understand that this is not the kind of person I am,” Bell said.
“Again, I’d like to apologize to anyone who was hurt by my words and will continue to always treat people with kindness and respect,” he added.
Bell, through his legal counsel, asked the NBA team for a second chance, to no avail, The Athletic reported.
The KGW reporter who first spotted the tweets, Devon Haskins, has deactivated his X account.
An unearthed tweet from Haskins’ account from November 7th, 2012, which is around the same time Bell made his tweets, said, “It’s Election Day!! The only day it’s ok to see old ladies working the polls!! #vote.”
It is unclear how old Haskins was when he tweeted this, but he started his media career in 2002 at a television station in Spokane, Washington.
TEGNA, the parent company of KGW, has started an internal investigation into the published news story that led to Bell’s firing, according to thedesk.net.
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Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network. Email tips to Zachery at [email protected].
Photo “Portland Trail Blazers Game” by Another Believer. CC BY-SA 3.0.
