Gold medalist Simone Manuel of the United States celebrates on the podium during the medal ceremony for the Women’s 100m Freestyle Final on Day 6 of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium on August 11, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
*Simone Manuel has become the first African-American woman to win a gold medal in an individual Olympic swimming event…and the inevitable awkward headlines regarding her pioneering status have already begun.
“Michael Phelps shares historic night with African-American” proclaimed the Mercury News on Twitter Thursday after her win, prompting an Olympic sized backlash.
Mercury News, which brings the latest Silicon Valley and San Francisco Bay Area news, eventually deleted the tweet…but of course it lived on in memory:
We apologize for an insensitive headline earlier on a story about Simone Manuel and Michael Phelps' medal wins.http://bayareane.ws/2bmj2zQ
Olympics: Stanford's Simone Manuel shares historic night with Michael Phelps
Simone Manuel wins first individual swimming gold medal by African-American woman.
mercurynews.com
The Mercury News wasn’t the only outlet targeted by viewers over its treatment of Manuel.
NBC was called out for opting not to air her gold medal ceremony live. Instead, the network continued its taped footage of gymnastics and eventually ran Manuel’s footage after midnight.
Carbonated TV reported: “BBC was the only channel to broadcast the monumental ceremony live. However, once the Internet began shaming NBC for not deeming Manuel’s historic win important enough to show on TV, they aired it — almost an hour later.”
Here's Simone Manuel's Medal Ceremony, Since NBC Didn't Air It
NBC couldn’t be arsed to show you Simone Manuel’s monumental medal ceremony after becoming the first black American woman to win an individual swimming event, as they had seven-hour-old footage of...
screengrabber.deadspin.com
NBC Sports doesn’t even have the full ceremony on its YouTube channel. (The footage picks up midway through the National Anthem.) Also, it’s forcing folks to view the footage at its YouTube site:
To see Simone Manuel’s full medal ceremony, click here. Thank you BBC and Deadspin.
Comments