In a piece for his website, Jason Whitlock turned heads when he said that host and reporter Maria Taylor got her opportunities at ESPN in part because she is ‘tall, attractive and quite personable on television.’
The piece also takes a shot at Katie Nolan where he wrote “Beauty intoxicates TV executives, bloggers and journalists, and it masks a lack of accomplishment, qualifications and skill. Beauty transformed Katie Nolan from bartender to seven-figure personality, Emmy Award-winner and the darling of aroused bloggers and TV critics willing to ignore her pedestrian humor and inability to execute live television.”
As soon as Whitlock’s sexist comments made its way to social media, people strated reacting to it, and it eventually got around to Alex Flanagan. The NFL Network reporter had her own experience with Whitlock in the past, so she decided to write about it.
“10 yrs ago Jason Whitlock tried to discredit my career attacking my gender & appearance. When I saw him do it again to @MariaTaylor & @katienolan, this week I decided to speak up.”
She wrote:
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“Jason Whitlock’s misogynistic comments regarding ESPN’s Maria Taylor and Katie Nolan made me hot in the face. Not only because of the abusive, cruel, and divisive nature of his words but because it reminded me of the time I was the target of Whitlock’s sexist schtick.
It has been more than nine years since I found myself in the center of Jason Whitlock’s perpetual “attractive women only have a job based on their looks” narrative.
Whitlock’s mean spirited attempt to discredit my reporting skills, based on my physical appearance, began during the peak of my career on January 8, 2011.”
Whitlock got wind of the article, and of course, fired back at her.
