CNN anchor Jim Acosta was stunned by a porn-related nickname that Los Angeles Times columnist Ben Bolch used to describe the LSU women’s basketball team, which was later removed by the paper with an apology.
Bolch himself apologized on social media Monday over a column in which he posed the UCLA-LSU matchup as a good vs. evil contest, and referred to the LSU team by a name that’s also a porn series — “dirty debutantes.”
“Do you prefer America’s sweethearts or its dirty debutantes? Milk and cookies or Louisiana hot sauce?” Bolch wrote in the original version, which has since been cut down with an apologetic editor’s note.
On Tuesday’s edition of CNN Newsroom, Acosta wrapped up a segment with sports analyst Christine Brennan, about the LSU-Iowa game that saw Caitlin Clark’s team advance, by asking about Bolch’s column.
Taken aback by the nickname, Acosta asked how such a column “even got published”:
JIM ACOSTA: What about, what is going on with the LA times? You know, great newspaper. I mean, what a dumb mistake. They published this commentary piece on LSU’s coach Kim Mulkey. After the backlash, the newspaper had to add this editorial note to it, saying the commentary did not meet the editorial standards of the newspaper.The piece referred to LSU as, quote, “dirty debutantes.”.I mean, what?! I– this–
I don’t understand how this even got published.CHRISTINE BRENNAN: You know, Jim, I was moderating a panel a week ago, the University of Maryland, and I asked all the panelists if Caitlin Clark were Black. Would she be would we be looking at this in a different way? And let’s be honest, the answer from everyone on the panel was yes in some way or another.And, you know, race, of course, is part of, my goodness, our lives. And, I think that the idea that what has happened with Angel Reese and some of the criticism she’s taken- and by the way, Caitlyn Clark gets a lot of criticism, too. So, you know, there’s certainly a lot of people who just want to criticize anyone on social media. Shock of all shocks.But I think what we saw there with it, L.A. times piece, which, by the way, the columnist has apologized. And the paper, of course, as you said, has retracted some of it– is just, the worst of, of journalism. And thankfully they realized that and apologized. But here we are. This is our world, unfortunately, in this, you know, in the 21st century.JIM ACOSTA: Yeah. And the chauvinism, I mean, and I mean, just it’s just, really unfair because, I mean, look at what these athletes have accomplished on the court. It’s it’s really remarkable.
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