When the New York Daily News’ Bob Raissman wasn’t being stymied this week in his attempts to interview the YES Network’s Kimberley Jones ( “John Madden might be “not available” for two days, but Kimberly Jones?”), he wondered if his colleagues had selective memories when it came to the retirement of Knicks SG Allan Houston.
Are they suffering from a mass case of amnesia?
That’s the question after smelling those farewell bouquets the local media threw Allan Houston. The month of March, 2001, was not included in any of these wonderful floral arrangements.
That was when Houston and Charlie Ward decided to provide their religious “insights” to a New York Times Magazine reporter. Houston and Ward talked about Jews killing Christ and how Jews persecute Christians.
At the time I called both of them anti-Semites. Even back then, most of the local media decided to give Houston and Ward a pass.
Concluding that Houston and Ward were anti-Semitic creeps was a lot harder, for most of the media, than the whole John Rocker episode, when the words “racist” and “bigot” exited mouths as easily as ordering “bacon” and “eggs” for breakfast.
Houston and Ward’s half-baked apology must have stuck. Now, four years later, reporting what Houston had to say about Jewish people would only get in the way of the media’s melancholy good-byes.