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ESPN suspends Jemele Hill for violation of social media guidelines

ESPN suspends Jemele Hill for violation of social media guidelines
Posted at 12:34 PM, Oct 09, 2017
and last updated 2017-10-10 09:15:23-04

Sportscaster Jemele Hill has been suspended for two weeks by ESPN for what the network is calling a "violation of social media guidelines."

ESPN's PR department broke the news in a tweet on Monday.

 

 

"Jemele Hill has been suspended for two weeks for a second violation of our social media guidelines. She previously acknowledged letting her colleagues and company down with an impulsive tweet. In the aftermath, all employees were reminded of how individual tweets may reflect negatively on ESPN and that such action would have consequences. Hence this decision," ESPN's statement read.

ESPN declined to specify which tweets Hill was being suspended for, though she suggested fans upset with Dallas Cowboys' owner Jerry Jones' anthem protest policy boycott Cowboys' advertisers.

 

 

Hill later clarified that she was not advocating a boycott.

 

 

Hill, the host of ESPN's 6 p.m. SportsCenter along with Michael Smith, was part of a national controversy last month when she tweeted that President Donald Trump was a "white supremacist who largely surrounded himself with other white supremacists." She was not suspended for that tweet, though it did elicit a response from President Trump.

 

 

Alex Hider is a writer for the E.W. Scripps National Desk. Follow him on Twitter @alexhider.