Legendary Illinois TV Sportscaster Suspended for Trump Tweet

If you work in the media, you need to be very careful what you tweet about. Veteran Chicago TV sports reporter Mark Giangreco had some nasty words about President Trump and his supporters, that landed him in hot water this week.

ABC 7 sportscaster Mark Giangreco has been a fixture of Chicago TV sports for years. He previously worked on WMAQ-TV Channel 5 and is presently the lead sportscaster for ABC TV station WLS-TV channel 7 and anchors the sports for several newscasts and the highly rated 10 p.m. ABC 7 newscast.

What got Giangrco in trouble was a tweet he made on Sunday afternoon. According to ChicagoCityWire.com, Giangreco called the United States “a country full of simpletons” on Sunday afternoon.

Giangreco was responding to a tweet by a Canadian newspaper writer who attacked President Donald Trump.

After the columnist wrote “Donald Trump: a hateful ignorant corrupt simpleton supported by 87% of Republicans,” Giangreco replied, “so obvious, so disturbing America exposed as a country full of simpletons who allowed this cartoon lunatic to be ‘elected’.”

Blogger and former newspaper columnist and media critic Robert Feder is reporting that Giangreco has been suspended by ABC7 for several weeks, because of the tweet. Feder reports:

Management of the top-rated ABC-owned station released the following statement Thursday: “Mark Giangreco’s Twitter comments are not in line with ABC 7 Chicago’s non-partisan editorial standards. We’ve reviewed the matter and are taking the appropriate action.”

Giangreco later deleted the post. Giangreco and ABC 7 declined further comment.

A little insight for those who may not be aware. If work in the media, a higher standard is often applied to your social media and 'public' comments like these, made by media personalities, whether one agrees or disagrees with the content, are not tolerated by media owners and management.

If you are not familiar with Mark Giangreco, he can be seen here.

This not the first time Giangreco has got in trouble, according to RobertFeder.com, in 2004, Giangreco received a one week suspension for making a joke about Detroit going up in flames after the Detroit Pistons won the NBA Championship that year.