A regional newspaper editor has decided that one of her sports reporters should not cover Premier League football team Sunderland because he once made derogatory references to it on Facebook.
Joy Yates told readers of the Sunderland Echo that Liam Kennedy will no longer write in the paper about the local club following “a large number of complaints” about comments he made about the team before he joined the Echo staff.
According to a HoldTheFrontpage article, Kennedy made the comments six years ago. They resurfaced on Facebook and were quickly reposted.
They were laden with expletives, were highly critical of Sunderland and revealed him to be a supporter of the club’s great rivals, Newcastle United.
Kennedy tried to make amends with “a whole-hearted apology”, in which he admitted to being ashamed at his “pathetic, infantile posts” that were made before he became a journalist.
“I am a different person now,” he wrote. “I was young, daft and trying to be clever.” Being a Newcastle United fan “does not mean I cannot cover Sunderland AFC with … commitment and passion … It will all be done without bias.”
But the apology did not assuage the fans’ anger and Yates felt it necessary to stand him down. Kennedy only recently joined the Echo from the Dundee Evening Telegraph.
Yates explained that she had to take the concerns of her readers “very seriously.” So “for a number of reasons, the decision has now been made that Liam will no longer be covering SAFC.”
Sunderland have had a poor start to the season under their new manager, David Moyes. The team is one place off the bottom of the Premier League.
