Vancouver Sun apologizes for racial insensitive caption

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

http://www.thehockeynews.com/blog/vancouver-sun-publishes-apologizes-for-racist-photo-caption/

On Tuesday night, Vancouver Canucks prospect Jordan Subban scored his first NHL pre-season goal on the first shot of his first shift in the 2014 exhibition period. Pretty cool, right?

Unfortunately, when the Vancouver Sun ran a photo of the goal celebration, the racist caption below it became a bigger story than Subban’s big league tryout. Note the horribly offensive description in parenthesis.

The photo, which appeared on the paper’s website Tuesday night, was taken by Steve Bosch, though it’s not yet clear who wrote the cutline. The newspaper has since apologized for the insensitive wording.

[samsingh]

1. that's the type of employees they hire

[arcane1]

3. White stright dudes rule n/t

[Rex]

4. And how many times have you seen major news outlets caption someone

as 'the dark guy'...right NONE. Outraged warranted, nice try at playing it down and welcome to DU.

[trof]

5. Dang, black guys can ice skate?

Who knew?

[Brickbat]

6. Having worked on a copy desk, I can see how this might have happened.

[AverageJoe90]

7. It's unfortunate, but it certainly could have been far, far, worse.

Still, though, good on the Sun for apologizing for the unintentionally insensitive caption.

[rocktivity]

8. "Insensitive" isn't the word I'd use

COMATOSE -- THAT'S THE WORD I'D USE!


rocktivity

[JI7]

9. how would they have described it if he was white ?

and why couldn't the same be said in this case ?

[Monk06]

10. The conventional caption would have been, "Jordan Subban, (center)"

They already said middle so the duffus who wrote the copy went out of his/her way to be stupid.

I'm betting he/she is now a former employee.

[Enrique]

11. except maybe that center is a position in the game

but your point stands, the way they did this caption isn't the way it's done.

[Monk06]

14. Which is why whoever wrote the cutline wrote middle. Trouble is he/she kept writing.

[Nye Bevan]

12. While I don't think that the word "dark" is, in itself, a racist epithet,

that caption is horribly unprofessional.

[rocktivity]

13. As well as apologizing, the Vancouver Sun has tweeted

Last edited Fri Sep 26, 2014, 01:26 AM - Edit history (4)

What's there to look into? Just find out who wrote the caption, find out who approved it, find out who should have read it between its being written and being published, AND FIRE THEM!!!

This is no different than the South Park episode about Kick A Ginger Day -- from conception through production through approval for airing by Comedy Central, not ONE person stood up and said, "This could come back to haunt us -- even by OUR standards?"

rocktivity