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Second newsman to accidentally flub MLK Jr.’s name forced to grovel over innocent mistake and go on indefinite leave

January 27, 2019 | | Print Article
(Video screenshot)

For the second time in the span of only weeks, a local news reporter has been disciplined for a completely unintentional mispronunciation of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s name.

The latest gaffe occurred Jan. 17, when St. Louis station KTVI reporter Kevin Steincross accidentally referred to MLK as “Martin Luther Coon Jr.'”

Watch:

Something similar occurred earlier this month in New York, where former WHEC meteorologist Jeremy Kappell also accidentally mispronounced MLK’s name.

In both instances, the men made errors equivalent to typos. There was no intent behind their mispronunciation. They were speaking quickly and simply misspoke.

To be clear, people have made far worse gaffes. In January of 2007, then Democrat vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden described his running mate, Barack Obama, as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”

The difference is that Biden’s gaffe had been intentional.

In the case of Steincross and Kappell, both men made the added error of apologizing for their mistakes. The argument could easily be made that one shouldn’t have to apologize profusely for typos.

After complaints from viewers, Steincross issued a statement on the afternoon of Jan. 17 apologizing for his error and making it clear that it’d just been a mistake.

“I want to take a moment to apologize,”  he said. “We have heard from a viewer about a mistake I made in our 5:00 am newscast this morning in our story about the tribute to Dr. King. I, unfortunately, mispronounced his name. Please note I have total respect for Dr. King, what he meant and continues to mean to our country. This was not intentional in any way, and I sincerely apologize.”

Listen:

At first, the station stood behind their intrepid reporter.

“The Fox2 management team spoke to Kevin following the mistake and we believe that it was truly inadvertent and does not reflect Kevin’s core beliefs,” a spokesperson for the station’s owners, Tribune Media, said in a written statement, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

But then the same sorts of far-left activists who still hypocritically stand behind Biden began claiming that Steincross is a racist and must, therefore, be fired immediately.

“There are some matters where it is imperative we take a stand, and this is one of them,” St. Louis County NAACP President John Gaskin said. “I understand some people believe it was a mistake, but there are some mistakes in every field that are grounds for termination.”

Gaskin is a known far-left activist and race-baiter who still views Ferguson thug Michael Brown as a victim of injustice. Brown was justifiably shot and killed five years ago when he attacked a St. Louis police officer who had been trying to apprehend him for an armed robbery.

In response, the station buckled and placed Steincross on leave. Listen below as he apologizes yet again for his unintended error and announces his indefinite leave from his job:

Gaskin was of course thrilled.

“It is very unfortunate what occurred, however, I think there is an opportunity to move forward in terms of how we can learn from this,” he said. “I hope we don’t forget this, but that we can learn from this, and move the region and community forward so that this never happens again.”

One could argue that the only lesson that was taught here was that when falsely accused of racism, you should never apologize. It’s a lesson President Donald Trump understands well, and that Steincross and others like have him been forced to discover the hard way.

Regarding Kappell, he didn’t even receive an indefinite suspension. Instead, he was outright fired. Want to know who hasn’t been fired? Three CNN contributors — Don Lemon, Tara Setmayor and Bakari Sellers — who last year referred to rapper Kanye West as a “token negro.”

Nor has MSNBC host Joy Reid been fired, despite the fact that she once suggested that congressman Steve Scalise deserved to be shot and nearly killed by former Bernie Sanders volunteer James Hodgkinson, a deranged MSNBC fan who had opened fire on lawmakers at a baseball practice.

And in the case of anti-white racist Sarah Jeong, she was in fact hired by The New York Times despite a history of posting disparaging remarks about white people to Twitter.

HERE’S WHAT YOU’RE MISSING …

And FYI, none of these media personalities ever apologized for their remarks and statements.

Steincross and Kappell did apologize — albeit for unintentional mistakes versus intentional statements — and what did they get over it? Not much career-wise, though thankfully, many Americans across the country still support them:

HERE’S WHAT YOU’RE MISSING …

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Vivek Saxena
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