Britt McHenry: Was An Egotistical Bad Girl Rewarded For Bad Behavior?
Britt McHenry, the ESPN reporter who was recently suspended for a week after a video surfaced of her belittling a worker at a towing company, will be back on TV this weekend.
McHenry is getting back to work covering the NFL draft in St. Louis, according to Sports Illustrated.
As the Inquisitr reported earlier, McHenry had a tantrum of sorts and basically belittled the tow truck employee because “I’m on television and you’re in a f—–g trailer, honey.” In other words, Britt McHenry’s sense of entitlement and huge ego told her she was more of a human being than the other person she was speaking to.
In a later apology, per Twitter (of course), Britt claimed the situation occurred in an “intense and stressful moment,” and she admittedly could not handle it. However, she claimed to learn from the situation and will “take the high road” in the future.
We’ve all been there, haven’t we? Of course, we aren’t all on television, but some of us do have very demanding lives. We have to be responsible for other lives (our children, our patients, our students), we need to handle deadlines and stressful job situations, and we all have to get by to see another day.
We’ve all, like McHenry, scathingly said, “Maybe if I was missing some teeth they would hire me huh? Lose some weight baby girl.”
Oh, wait. No, I have never said anything remotely close to what McHenry said to that tow truck employee, even at the worst of times and with the worst of service. Perhaps it’s human decency, empathy, or just a mean streak which I don’t have within myself, but I could not stand there and say, in the most basic terms, “I’m this or that, and you’re only this or that. You are less than me.”
We don’t know what the other woman said to Britt McHenry, but McHenry did have the choice to walk away. She chose not to walk away.
Now, with a slap on the wrist and looking forward to the future, Britt McHenry is ready to continue her career with more publicity than ever. McHenry’s mean bullying and ESPN’s little suspension put her in the spotlight and gave her some attention, even if it wasn’t all great.
Like some others, I had no clue who this person was before the video came out. Now I know who she is and her reporting will stand out to me. For Britt McHenry, the exposure is probably a positive and negative mixture. There are many who have stepped forward to support her because of the towing company’s ratings, and even the belittled employee didn’t want McHenry to be fired.
According to the Edmonton Sun, over 16,000 people signed an online petition to have Britt fired.
I do not believe McHenry should have been fired for her actions as long as this is not a repeat pattern of behavior. I sincerely hope she is not like this all the time to people she encounters on bad days. I do think that the one-week suspension was a bit lenient, considering the content of her angry remarks.
We have yet to see what may come of her actions, but ESPN has already made clear that Britt McHenry will continue to push forward in her career.
[Photo by ESPN]
