Golf Channel Moving to Stamford, CT

[iacas]

Quote

It sounds like she pissed off one of the favorite employees, pissed off her boss, and then pissed off a sponsor. And is claiming the retribution she has received was because she’s a women.

In March of some year (2020?), Lisa filed an EEOC complaint (I’m having a hard time figuring out the timeline here, as she’s rushing or rambling or just… maybe it’s my fault, but I’m not entirely clear on the timing and relationships. I don’t know if she filed this, or joined one already filed, or what, exactly.)

She says it’s a “very clear timeline” but it’s really unclear to me. Golf Channel’s response rips her on-air personality and paints a very bad picture of her, despite what they say are great performance reviews.

She got the ANA Inspiration (I guess 2020?).

Ten days before the ANA, LIsa got information about a player playing in the ANA using Mizuno clubs. The woman, an LPGA player, couldn’t get her spin numbers where they wanted them, so they requested new heads from Mizuno so they could put a certain Nippon shaft in them, and the Tour rep said he didn’t have the parts and referred them to corporate. Corporate replied that they couldn’t get the club heads to the player in time. Lisa took offense to that and aired it during the tournament, because she felt that if it was a PGA Tour player playing in a major Mizuno would have gotten the heads to the player. The player offered to pay for the heads and to overnight them, and Mizuno maintained that they still couldn’t do it.

They wanted the Tour heads, and the player bought the set of club heads off the rack.

She was sent home from the ANA.

But… what if Mizuno didn’t have the heads? What if it had nothing to do with gender at all?

Jeff Russell (sp?) called her the next day, she’s had “shouting matches” and “episodes” with him, and he is “reasonable” to start off, and called her about the tweet above. She said they had gotten calls from Mizuno, and Mizuno felt they were being unfair to Mizuno. She had also interviewed Janet and made fun of Mizuno lightly in the post-round interview.

She says in that conversation when she mentioned that Beth Ann Nichols had written stuff about this type of stuff, and that “flipped a switch” in Russell. He started “screaming at the top of his lungs.”

She hung up on him.

Mark Summer (I looked it up) calls her when she’s complaining to her sister or friend or something, and tells her to call Geoff Russell (looked that up too) back. She said “I don’t have to call him back, I don’t care if he’s my boss. I wouldn’t let the President of the U.S. talk to me that way.”

Geoff tries to call her, she doesn’t answer. Mark calls her back, and tells her that Mark tells her that Geoff wants her to go home. She leaves the ANA.

[iacas]

Golf Channel flew Cara Banks out to do the interviews at the USWO, which somewhat hurts the idea that it’s a gender issue. And Damon Hack. Both of those are going to CT, I think.

In other words, I don’t understand the gender issue here. It sounds like maybe Golf Channel thought that Lisa was a bad employee, a bit of a jerk herself, and a troublemaker.

I don’t see much gender stuff here.

Geoff apologized to Lisa for his tone and said “rest assured, this will never happen again” and Lisa says she took it as that she never interviewed another LPGA Tour player again. But this occurred in September, and by October she knew she wasn’t being moved to Connecticut with a new contract, so even this seems… like it’s not necessarily at all about gender.

Chris asks how these are gender-specific, and not Lisa-specific, and Lisa only ever hints at vague things that “happened to other women.”

Her lawyer Tom talks, then, and says (paraphrased): “The Golf Channel has a history of finding ways to fire women who speak out against the misogyny.” He doesn’t give any specifics. He only says they have “legitimate grounds,” but of course he’s going to say this. He said that the behavior tolerated is so bad it wouldn’t be tolerated “at any other place,” which feels like a stretch and a half.

NBC and Golf Channel are putting together a defense, and he said “most of the women” have been silenced with NDAs and cash payments.

He says Lisa is the first woman willing to speak up publicly.

[iacas]

Chris asks for specific examples, and the lawyer provides “a couple.”

• An executive told a female employee that she needed to dress more like Hillary Clinton because her “tanned athletic legs” were too distracting to the men during meetings.”
• A senior male employee told a 20-something female that “a trained monkey” could do her job.

Seems pretty rare that you’d allege sexism for telling a woman to dress more like Hillary Clinton, and I’d have to wonder if a guy wearing shorts or something revealing wouldn’t have gotten the same comment? Usually this stuff goes the other way.

I don’t see the sexism in either of those quotes, to be honest.

Chris seemed disappointed by those responses, as I was.

[DeadMan]

Tom Mars is a serious attorney, and as far as I can tell, a pretty good one. I don't think he usually does sex discrimination claims, but him signing onto the case makes me think there is something to it.

[boogielicious]

3 minutes ago, iacas said:

Chris asks for specific examples, and the lawyer provides “a couple.”

• An executive told a female employee that she needed to dress more like Hillary Clinton because her “tanned athletic legs” were too distracting to the men during meetings.”
• A senior male employee told a 20-something female that “a trained monkey” could do her job.

Seems pretty rare that you’d allege sexism for telling a woman to dress more like Hillary Clinton, and I’d have to wonder if a guy wearing shorts or something revealing wouldn’t have gotten the same comment? Usually this stuff goes the other way.

I don’t see the sexism in either of those quotes, to be honest.

Chris seemed disappointed by those responses, as I was.

FWIW, the first example in my former company would get the exec in a lot of hot water. We were trained every year on this. The second one is less of an issue unless it’s part of a pattern.

[iacas]

Just now, boogielicious said:

FWIW, the first example in my former company would get the exec in a lot of hot water. We were trained every year on this. The second one is less of an issue unless it’s part of a pattern.

Sure, but you’re also not on television.

Lisa says that she didn’t “hold back” in this interview (I think), but there doesn’t seem to be much. She named Brandel, Mark, and Geoff.

She thinks she’s a great “team player” and a great reporter who “really knows the game.”

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I’m done with the interview now, but in all, I feel less like it’s a gender issue now than I did on January 1 when I saw the tweet. It sounds like Lisa was a pain in the butt. It sounds like Lisa thought she was a great reporter (and maybe Brandel didn’t), and most of the interactions she had where she was in trouble was because she was a woman, not because she was doing her job poorly. It sounds like the Golf Channel has some screwy structure and some assholes running things.

[iacas]

Lisa Cornwell airs out allegations of mistreatment by Golf Channel executives on No Laying Up podcast

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Since her contract with the Golf Channel ended last month, Lisa Cornwell has alleged in multiple tweets that she both experienced and witnessed mistreatment during her employment with the network. The initial tweet...

I'm going to post two comments I posted at GS's site:

IMO she completely failed to make the point that it's gender-related at all. I assume she held back some info, even though she will say she didn't, and the Golf Channel seems to have issues no doubt, but she failed to make this convincingly gender-related, I think.

The lawyer gave an example of a boss telling a female employee that a "trained monkey" could do her work, and they cited this as two examples of the gender bias. I don't see it - unless the boss repeatedly admonishes only the women for the same work, or other similar things, I don't think saying that a "trained monkey" could do your job makes it a gender-related issue.

The interview was scattered and all over the place. The timeline was a bit messy, but Lisa had previously screwed up something on-air with Brandel, who it's clear she dislikes and thinks is a horrible person, and he "waved his arms" about it. She talks about multiple "screaming matches" with her bosses. The whole interview came off, to me, as if Golf Channel may think Lisa was just a lousy employee, not that they mistreated her because she's a woman.

We know < 1% of all of this, though, so… we'll see what happens in court. If her case was not much more than what was on the podcast, though, I don't think she'd win a gender-based suit. Maybe she should've taken the hush money she alleges other women at GC took.

and

The story even Lisa said was basically that the LPGA player wanted Mizuno Tour heads, and they said (for whatever reason) that they couldn't get them to her in time. The player offered to BUY the heads, to pay for overnight shipping, etc. and Mizuno STILL didn't ship the heads out.

So it came off to me as much more likely that Mizuno was telling the truth - they simply couldn't get the club heads out to the player in time - and not that they were trying to discriminate against the LPGA Tour player. She had offered to pay, and they still couldn't do it.

 

 

[Double Mocha Man]

Agreed on your "trained monkey" thoughts.  If they had said a "Female trained monkey" could not do the same job as a "Male trained monkey" then there's a case.  The whole thing is kinda sad, for all parties.  I thought we were past that stuff.  Then, I'm such an optimist.  

[iacas]

🤦‍♂️

[Aguirre]

On 2/28/2020 at 11:00 PM, dennyjones said:

I'm sure Stamford, CT is beautiful

It's not

[boogielicious]

2 hours ago, Aguirre said:

It's not

You’ve been there too! Yeah, it’s not a pretty place from the highway. It does have some nice sections, but it’s not a beautiful place by any stretch.

[Double Mocha Man]

4 hours ago, Aguirre said:

It's not

Well, there goes your chance of becoming a member of the Stamford Chamber of Commerce.

[boogielicious]

Some disagree though.

https://livability.com/ct/stamford/where-to-live-now/why-stamford-ct-is-a-top-100-best-place-to-live

[DeadMan]

Not sure if this is worth a new thread, but there's some more gas for the Lisa Cornwell/GC sexism fire:

At Golf Channel, women say, sexism fuels a ‘boys club’ culture - The Washington Post

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Harassing emails. Demeaning comments. A struggle to climb the corporate ladder. Former employees of Golf Channel describe a culture that routinely sidelines women.