Mike Bell suspended over crude reference to Jessica Mendoza, AJC blames “PC Twitter police”

Atlanta afternoon radio host Mike Bell took plenty of flack for his comments about ESPN’s Jessica Mendoza during Tuesday night’s wild-card game, which included the crude Anchorman reference of “Tits McGhee,” and now he’s getting some punishment. There was no initial response from Bell’s station, 92.9 The Game FM, but they suspended him for a non-specified period of time Wednesday, which a source told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Rodney Ho will be two weeks. Bell also read an apology on the air Wednesday afternoon:

Bell read a pre-taped statement on the air on 92.9/The Game apologizing for his actions. He apologized to his colleagues, advertisers, the sports teams that work with The Game and his co-host Carl Dukes. “I didn’t get it,” he said. “I get it now. There is no place for that kind of stuff on my show. I will be more mindful. I hope I can be a better talk show host and better person. This has been an eye-opening experience.”

It’s interesting that the statement mentions “sports teams that work with The Game,” as one of those teams may have helped to precipitate this action. That would be the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, whose games are aired on 92.9. The Falcons  tweeted Wednesday that they were disappointed with Bell’s behaviour:

Embarrassed by Mike Bell’s comments, given he’s on our flagship station. Inappropriate and disappointing.

— Atlanta Falcons (@AtlantaFalcons) October 7, 2015

In another curious facet of this saga, Ho’s initial Journal-Constitution article on the Twitter backlash against Bell said it was from “The PC Twitter Police.” Turner’s Rachel Nichols wasn’t impressed with that, and tweeted a screenshot of Ho’s article at the paper with some criticism:

Hey @ajc-did you really call those upset by a sexist rant against a 2x Olympic gold medalist the "Twitter PC police"? pic.twitter.com/MbWN4W6mhf

— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) October 7, 2015

The paper never responded (unsurprisingly, as their @ajc account appears to be a pure story feed). However, the line was quickly deleted and Ho apologized on his own Twitter account. Here’s some of what he said:

@JordanBrenner I realize PC police is a loaded term so I have since deleted it. http://t.co/mZ28gTnSD2

— Rodney Ho (@AJCRodneyHo) October 7, 2015

@JordanBrenner People get mean on social media, sometimes justified, sometimes not. Bell should've just deleted, apologized & not engaged.

— Rodney Ho (@AJCRodneyHo) October 7, 2015

@trenni That was not cool. I do realize now I picked up the PC police term because it's a term Mike Bell had invoked while arguing w/folks

— Rodney Ho (@AJCRodneyHo) October 7, 2015

It’s quite something when coverage of someone’s problematic Twitter comments is itself this problematic, but hopefully everyone involved can pick up something from this one. As Trenni Kusnierek says in the above tweet, the issue here isn’t a claim that Mendoza’s above criticism. If Bell had simply taken issue with her comments and said he preferred other commentators, fine, but he made it specifically about gender and got himself in deserved hot water as a result. This is a world that still poses plenty of barriers for women in sports media, including abuse on social media and attempts to bar them from locker rooms; Bell’s sexist comments here add to those problems. He also might want to study up on his Anchorman: “Tits McGhee” is a disparaging nickname for Veronica Corningstone (played by Christina Applegate), who winds up being much more competent than the boys on the Channel 4 news team. So, if Bell was trying to suggest that adding a woman’s a bad idea, he picked the wrong example. He did say that Mendoza isn’t the worst possible choice, though:

https://twitter.com/mikebell929/status/651618916628856832