{"id":13490,"date":"2017-02-23T16:00:05","date_gmt":"2017-02-23T22:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=13490"},"modified":"2017-02-23T16:29:25","modified_gmt":"2017-02-23T22:29:25","slug":"abc-7-suspends-mark-giangreco-lunatic-trump-tweet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2017\/02\/23\/abc-7-suspends-mark-giangreco-lunatic-trump-tweet\/","title":{"rendered":"ABC 7 suspends Mark Giangreco for \u2018lunatic\u2019 Trump tweet"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

<\/a> Mark Giangreco<\/p><\/div>\n

WLS-Channel 7 <\/a>has slapped sports anchor Mark Giangreco with a multi-week suspension for a tweet in which he called President Donald Trump a \u201ccartoon lunatic\u201d and referred to Trump voters as \u201csimpletons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Management of the top-rated ABC-owned station released the following statement Thursday: \u201cMark Giangreco\u2019s Twitter comments are not in line with ABC 7 Chicago\u2019s non-partisan editorial standards. We\u2019ve reviewed the matter and are taking the appropriate action.\u201d<\/p>\n

An ABC 7 spokeswoman would not elaborate on the action. Sources said Giangreco would be suspended without pay for \u201cmultiple weeks,\u201d starting Monday.<\/p>\n

Reached Thursday, Giangreco declined to comment. His agent, Joel Weisman, did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

The controversy began last Sunday when Giangreco reacted to a tweet<\/a> by Bruce Arthur, sports columnist for the Toronto Star, who wrote: \u201cDonald Trump: a hateful ignorant corrupt simpleton supported by 87% of Republicans.\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Mark Giangreco<\/p><\/div>\n

In reply, Giangreco tweeted: \u201cSo obvious, so disturbing. America exposed as a country full of simpletons who allowed this cartoon lunatic to be \u2018elected.'\u201d<\/p>\n

Giangreco later deleted the post, but not before it was picked up by Chicago City Wire,<\/a> a website associated <\/a>with conservative talk show host Dan Proft, morning personality on Salem Media news\/talk WIND AM 560.<\/a> (The headline: \u201cABC 7 Chicago Sports Anchor Giangreco derides America as \u2018country full of simpletons,\u2019 questions legitimacy of presidential election.\u201d) The industry website TVSpy<\/a> also reported on it.<\/p>\n

Known as much for his sarcasm as for his sharp suits, Giangreco, 64, has been one of Chicago\u2019s highest paid and most popular sportscasters for 35 years. He joined ABC 7 in 1994 after 12 years at NBC-owned WMAQ-Channel 5.<\/a><\/p>\n

In 2004, Giangreco was suspended<\/a> one week without pay for joking about Detroit going up in flames after the Pistons won the NBA Championship. Over a black-and-white movie clip of a city burning, he called it a \"typical night for Detroit.\"<\/p>\n

In 2014 he apologized<\/a> for a airing a graphic over his shoulder that offended some viewers for its allusion to suicide. A photo of Bears quarterback Jay Cutler was captioned: \u201cCut him or cut your wrists.\u201d Later Giangreco said: \u201cMy remarks were inappropriate, and I deeply regret and apologize for this incident.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WLS-Channel 7 has slapped sports anchor Mark Giangreco with a multi-week suspension for a tweet in which he called President Donald Trump a \u201ccartoon lunatic\u201d and referred to Trump voters as \u201csimpletons.\u201d Management of the top-rated ABC-owned station released the following statement Thursday: \u201cMark Giangreco\u2019s Twitter comments are not in line with ABC 7 Chicago\u2019s... Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13490"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13490"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13498,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13490\/revisions\/13498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}