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Jim Gardner Has Zero F**** Left to Give
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Jim Gardner is retiring next year, joining Angelo Cataldi in the “I’m going to dial it back in 2022 before calling it a career” routine. He’s gonna step away from the 11 p.m. news and only do the 6 p.m. before retiring for good.
It APPEARS, however, that Gardner already has one foot out the door. He has zero fucks left to give. In recent months, he’s been arguing about the Sixers on Twitter and Thursday night was butting heads over COVID, as you can see here:
Covid-19 cases up to 120 thousand per day, 40% increase from two weeks ago, Universities are shutting down, sports team rosters are being ravaged, Phila health officials are advising no big family gatherings for Christmas. Haven't we been here before? This could get ugly. #covid
— Jim Gardner (@Jim_Gardner) December 16, 2021
Jessica, you may know better than the CDC, but they think COVID-19 deaths will soar by 73% to 15,600 a week by January 8. But again, you may know better. https://t.co/spQsP8tM7X
— Jim Gardner (@Jim_Gardner) December 16, 2021
Jessica, how long do you think it took to eradicate smallpox with a vaccine? Vaccine was introduced in 1796. Modern vaccine emerged in 20th century, and the WHO conducted global vaccination operation between 1958-77. First Covid vaccine was administered a year ago this week. https://t.co/4n1edvq50j
— Jim Gardner (@Jim_Gardner) December 17, 2021
We are not interested in a vaccine debate, but it’s funny to see Gardner cross the editorial threshold here. For the most part, he remained completely neutral in anything remotely political or controversial for the better part of the four decades he anchored on Action News. That’s the same for most of the big guns around here. Ukee Washington, Jim Rosenfield/Jacqueline London, etc. They know they are supposed to be unbiased news readers, and if they step over the line, sometimes there’s no coming back.
A lot of news folk have crossed that line in recent years. It started with Trump’s presidency, when you saw so many journalists put aside their neutrality to call the guy a moron or a dope or whatever. That was a natural response to the guy calling the entire industry “fake” and fraudulent, so I guess the response was understandable. And in our world, the whole “stick to sports” thing came flying off the back burner and was placed squarely on the front burner. It was the most intense cross-pollination of sports + news + politics + personal opinions that I’ve ever seen. And then when Trump left office, that all died down for a bit, but now you’ve got news people coming out again and tangling with the anti-vaxxers.
It’s fascinating. Jim Gardner is a guy who probably suppressed a bazillion thoughts over the years. Who knows what he was REALLY thinking when reading all of that teleprompter copy. Maybe they go to commercial break and he’s mumbling to himself, “man what a dickhead that (insert local figure) is.” Now that he’s ready to retire, more of his personal thoughts are coming out, and it’s not really surprising. It seems like he was very few Fs left to give. Say what you will about those thoughts, but this is certainly entertaining.
Now let’s send it over to Ducis Rodgers with sports. Good evening, Ducis.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com