Pot and Kettle: ESPN Reporter Reports Dallas Fuel Taimou News, Faces Backlash
By Nicholas Barth ·
An ESPN reporter who reported on the use of gay slurs by Dallas Fuel player Timo "Taimou" Kettunen has received backlash, due to his past use of similar slurs.
(Editor Note: This post contains some language which may be considered harsh and offensive. We may have edited the article to reflect this, but the videos generally are NSFW and uncensored. Be advised.)
According to a report by ESPN today, someone had filed a support ticket with Blizzard in regards to Dallas Fuel player Timo "Taimou" Kettunen calling another player a "f**king f**ggot kid" on his personal Twitch stream on January 23rd. The person who filed the support ticket followed up with Blizzard about the case and a customer service representive gave the following response that was provided to ESPN.
"Due to privacy/security concerns, we will not be able to discuss specifics like how we investigate these or what actions we will be taking from here. Rest assured, however, this has not been ignored" The ticket was later marked as resolved and closed.
The Overwatch League has not yet publicly commented on the matter, while the Dallas Fuel commented on the issue when the organization was made aware of Taimou's comments from when ESPN reached out to the team on Friday.
"We do recognize that our players and all those in the Overwatch League are constantly under the microscope," Miller said. "As an organization, we strive to provide players with advice and resources to help them balance professionalism needed to compete at a league level with the individual personalities that may have gained them popularity or their own followings. As you've seen recently, we certainly do look into any situation that goes against a code of conduct befitting the team and/or league," Said Dallas Fuel Spokesperson Greg Miller.
The stream in question can be found below, and after the slur was said Taimou explains that he had been accidentally toxic. This is not the first time that a Dallas Fuel player has been under scrutiny for on stream behavior, as Félix "xQc" Lengyel was fined $2,000 and suspended for the majority of Stage 1 for an anti-gay comment made on his personal stream.
Jacob Wolf, the reporter who broke the story, immediatly began to recieve backlash on Twitter, as people began to post screenshots of Wolf's past Twitter use that showed the reporter using the same slur in past tweets.
As @sean_morrison mentioned, per company policy, we are not supposed to link or use the language Taimou did in that report.
— Jacob Wolf (@JacobNWolf) March 4, 2018
The video clips are public, they were linked to us, we told the league and the Fuel. The Fuel responded to us. The league did not get back to us.
ESPN also recieved backlash for not originally including a link to the stream of Taimou's in question or quoting what the player had said. Both Jacob Wolf and Associate Editor for ESPN Esports Sean Morrison cited a company policy of ESPN that did not allow them to originally link or use the language that Taimou had used. ESPN would go on to update the article by including what Taimou had said on his stream.
As of this writing, none of the parties invloved have publicly stated if Taimou will face any consequences. We will continue to update this story at is develops.
(cover photo courtesy of Robert Paul Via Blizzard Entertainment)