Anthony Federico Apology Claims Racist Jeremy Lin ESPN Headline Was 'Honest Mistake'

After Jeremy Lin committed nine turnovers during the Knicks' recent loss to the New Orleans Hornets, ESPN promoted an article about the game on mobile platforms with a photo of Lin and the headline "Chink In The Armor." Within hours of publishing the racially offensive headline, ESPN issued a formal apology. Shortly thereafter, ESPN announced the firing of the editor responsible for the headline, Anthony Federico.

After the Knicks won their next game against the Dallas Mavericks, Lin told reporters that he accepted the ESPN apology, saying, "[You] have to learn to forgive, and I don't even think that was intentional. Or hopefully not."

Federico spoke with The Daily News, apologizing for his actions and claiming that his use of phrase was not intended as a reference to Lin's ethnicity. Expanding on his statements to the News, Federico tweeted a much longer apology on Wednesday.

I wrote the headline in reference to the tone of the column and not to Jeremy Lin’s race. It was a lapse in judgment and not a racist pun. It was an awful editorial omission and it cost me my job.

I owe an apology to Jeremy Lin and all people offended. I am truly sorry.

Actions speak louder than words. My words may have hurt people in that moment but my actions have always helped people. If those who vilify me would take a deeper look at my life they would see that I am the exact opposite of how some are portraying me.

After his initial apology, Federico's statement goes on to detail his charitable work, as well the philanthropies that he has participated in throughout his life.

They would see that on the day of the incident I got a call from a friend – who happens to be homeless – and rushed to his aid. He was collapsed on the side of the road due to exposure and hunger. They would see how I picked him up and got him a hotel room and fed him. They would see I used my vacation time last year to volunteer in the orphanages of Haiti. They would see how I ‘adopted’ an elderly Alzheimer’s patient and visited him every week for a year. They would see that every winter I organize a coat drive for those less fortunate in New Haven. They would see how I raised $10,000 for a friend in need when his kids were born four months premature. They would see how I have worked in soup kitchens and convalescent homes since I was a kid. They would see my actions speak louder than my words. They would see that these acts were not done for my glory, but for God’s. They would see that each day I live and will continue to live a life of joy and service.

Attempting to emphasize that the headline was an "honest mistake," Federico referenced his five years at ESPN. He explains that his career was "taking off" and that he had no motivation to throw it all away with such a racist pun. Despite his attempt to give a better accounting of his character than his recent mistake would, Federico never shirks his responsibility in this matter.

It is also crucial that people know that the writer of the column had nothing to do with the headline. I wrote it and now I take responsibility for it.

I am actually a Knicks fan and an ardent supporter of Jeremy Lin. Not surprisingly, he has handled the entire situation with grace and class.

Now I have to find a new job and move on with my life.

Click here to read the full apology.

Comments

[Red Cloud]

02:49 PM on 12/12/2012

1. This guy said he did not meant to offend Asians. That's lie. He knew he was gonna offend Asian. He knew using C-word was racist and offensive. He thought he gonna get away with it.
No need to apology cuz the apology occurred many time and gonna happen again.

2. If he truly hates Asian, why he married with Asian woman. What if his wife is a Chinese?

[Bill J4321]

05:12 PM on 02/28/2012

Looks like Anthony Federico has experienced a guido in his pasta.

[Joe Cass]

11:15 AM on 02/27/2012

So, part of your apology is to espouse your own efforts for doing the right thing? REJECTED!

[Swedish Shibboleth77]

09:10 PM on 02/26/2012

Mr. Frederico had so many other word choices besides "chink." For this reason I feel that he meant what he communicated, and actually assumed that he could get away with it. "Chink in the armor" is such an odd cliche to be using in this day and age.

Aside from semantics, actions speak louder than words: What makes me even more suspicious is how Frederico takes it upon h-i-m-s-e-l-f to boast in such lengthy detail about all his lifetime charity accomplishments. Had someone e-l-s-e communicated to us his philanthropies, we would not be left with such a mawkish impression of him. His repeated use of "they would see," followed by "I" and "my," in his own defensive diatribe, only substantiates that Frederico is truly sanctimonious, egotistic, pious, and self-absorbed. Racists often share these very same characteristics. A true philanthropist would not take it upon themself to regurgitate the charitable works they have performed over a lifetime, yet that is precisely the action that Frederico has taken. Finally, and curiously, since we are on the subject of Frederico's "philanthropic works," a major and deadly disaster occurred last March of 2011 in Japan, where are Frederico's mentioning of any good samaritanship, charity, compassion, and donations for the Asian Japanese victims of this horrific earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear melt-down?

[Kenwyn Kawananakoa]

01:51 AM on 02/27/2012

Others keep focusing on the semantics of the cliché that Frederico used, taking what's known in Linguistics as the semasiological approach. You, on the other hand, dug further by examining the very many other comments Frederico made after his apology was given, his own defensive comments in reference to his charity work, which indeed focuses on "I" and "my." You've accurately taken what's known in Linguistics as the onomasiological approach: never mind that the word "chink" is polysemic (having multiple meanings), what other possible components would allow us to form a more conclusive composite about Frederico by what we are afforded through this report on him? In so doing, you have provided a more persuasive argument that Frederico is, indeed, a racist, and, like most racists, an arrogant one at that. Frederico is not too smart of a man: he should have had someone else announce his many charitable deeds instead of himself. Like you've conveyed, Swedish, he would have been wiser, too, if he had at least provided one example of his directly helping Asian persons; the Fukushima disaster almost a year ago would definitely have been his opportunity in doing so. But then, it's still not too late for him to do so today. Stating that he is "an ardent supporter of Jeremy Lin" sounds so superficial.

[BigJared]

05:52 PM on 02/25/2012

I think political correctness has ran past its useful course several years ago and has now fully jumped the shark.

[zbadger13]

10:36 AM on 02/29/2012

amen !

[Ken Wyn]

05:07 AM on 02/25/2012

Tony Frederico should really consider writing for the Quarter Horse Races @ Hialeah Race Track, where someone of his speed belongs.

[FrankIncense]

10:00 PM on 02/25/2012

LMFAO!

[lusotropicalism]

06:01 AM on 02/24/2012

". . . let's say, for a moment, Frederico really did make an 'honest mistake.' Then at the very least he's an incompetent who still deserves to lose his job for the oversight. If he can't catch a racist pun in the middle of the onslaught of coverage about the implications of Lin's ethnicity, he's grossly negligent. People have been fired for less."

http://www.forharriet.com/2012/02/i-wish-i-could-be-so-naive-response-to.html

[lusotropicalism]

01:29 AM on 02/24/2012

I have no doubt that Frederico meant this word in the context of a racial slur. If you've lived and worked amongst Cuban Americans in Hialeah, FL as long as I have, you'd have heard this slur used by them all the time. There is a community of Cubans of Chinese background in Little Havana in Miami and Hialeah. They have always been the subject of the most cruel jokes and gestures by Hispanic and black Cubans. I can't count HOW many times members of this community have made rude and nasty gestures with their fingers by simulating the epicanthic fold of a Chinese or other Asian person's eyes by intentionally slanting their own eyes and having such a field day laughing in unison. This slur should never be taken lightly, and I doubt very much if a similarly degrading verbal or physical slur of one's own ethnicity or race would be equally and collectively downplayed and ignored the way so many out here have suggested it should be in the case of Lin.

[Jeramie Shebester]

09:43 PM on 02/23/2012

Whoever decided that this guy needed to be fired over using a common phrase should be ashamed of themselves. "Chink" has more than one meaning, and he wasn't using the offensive one.

[montanasian]

10:54 PM on 02/23/2012

It was at the very least a poor timing of a double entendre and if it wasnt meant at that you almost had to be on the moon to not make the connection to the almost 24 hour attention got as an ASIAN. With that said, it takes a real man to stand up and take responsibility and apologize. Koodos to him. good luck to him in his future.

[Jeramie Shebester]

07:16 AM on 02/24/2012

I think it was an unfortunate coincidence more than anything else. He posted the headline at 3:30 in the A.M. He was probably too tired to even see the connection.

[lusotropicalism]

01:00 AM on 02/24/2012

yeah . . . RIGHT . . . in your DREAMS!

[hawkff33]

08:52 PM on 02/23/2012

If I lost all respect for this country I would not make myself stayhere.

[George Hung]

06:03 PM on 02/23/2012

Both of them didn't know what it meant? Bull. So FREDERICO wrote the headline and based on ESPN's decision, BRETOS was at least aware of it. There is no way that both of them did not know that it is a horribly derogative term. Good luck finding a job FREDERICO! You'd be a better off saying it was a wrong, denying it just makes you seem both incompetent and stupid.

[See Org]

03:29 PM on 02/23/2012

Well, if he truly didn't mean it, this is the equivalent of someone walking past a construction site and having an anvil falling on his head. The coincidence is breathtaking that out of all the words in the English language he happened to use the ONE word that was used as a common derogatory slang word for Asians. I wonder when a black man starts excelling in hockey we will see a sportswriter use the word "niggardly" in the headline by accident.

[lusotropicalism]

11:31 PM on 02/24/2012

Right on the money! Sports journalism is not the place for incompetence, besides bigots. If this were a term applied to another group that's more represented in America, we wouldn't hear the end of it. This guy then would not just get off by being fired: folks would be threatening his life. But because it involves someone Asian, all the bigots feel they have every right to chime in and defend this Bozo. In so doing, we are better able to gauge just what a racist society America is towards Asian and Pacific Islander Americans.

[Ronald Tee Johnson]

03:14 PM on 02/23/2012

I heard an Asian on ESPN explaining that chink is same as using n word. All things are meant to be so we all know now and only one good guy lost his job.

[Shukr]

02:43 PM on 02/23/2012

Wtf. I'm Muslim and even I think everybody is overreacting.

[lusotropicalism]

01:45 AM on 02/24/2012

Well sure, you're not an East Asian with an epicanthic eye fold and other phenotypic traits common to those persons of East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Americas, and the Arctic. So naturally, it doesn't affect you, so what do you care? And what do I care the next time I'm in a chatroom and everyone is having a field day making hateful slurs hurled at Muslims?

[George Hung]

12:30 AM on 02/25/2012

So you are probably a bigoted Muslim, what's your point? Oh, because you are Muslim you can best define what is racist and what's not racist? Please, we hear this type of logic from some blacks and jews all the time.

Many non-bigoted Muslims, blacks and jews probably see the problem with the article. Just because you might have experienced racism does not mean that you are above being racist yourself.

[thewhitecomet637]

01:46 PM on 02/23/2012

He meant it, jeremy had nine turnovers costing the game, hence jeremy is the "chink" in the armor. pretty clever joke, but not clever enough to deduce the consequences. What is sad is he tries to justify his mistake with all the supposed good deeds he has done or so he says. Who can actually confirm. Probably a stunt to beg for his job back. ESPN did the right thing in firing him because this guy is a liability to the company. The only editor he will probably write for now is probably stormfront.org. Oh and the KKK are probably hiring too.