Papers are stacked Mike De Sisti / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK

Buffalo columnist: Firing over sexist remarks will leave women's sports stories 'untold'

By Zac Wassink | Last updated 12/14/22

Longtime Buffalo sports columnist Jerry Sullivan responded to losing gigs over sexist remarks he made during a local livestream podcast, as Brandon Contes of Awful Announcing relayed.

Recently, I've written countless women's sports features, from UB basketball and soccer to Medaille bowling, Olympic rowing and Lancaster High golf. It's sad that due to one stupid comment, many of these types of stories, which go largely ignored in local media, will go untold.
— Jerry Sullivan (@ByJerrySullivan) December 14, 2022

During a Monday appearance on the "Trainwreck Tonight" podcast, Sullivan reacted to a question by lecturing women to "be better" as fans and content consumers in the sports world.

"The worst fans really are the women," Sullivan said on the podcast. "They don’t get critical journalism. They’re all wannabe cheerleaders. You know what I mean? It’s always … It’s a dangerous avenue to go down to criticize women in general, because they’re better than men generally, but they don’t get it as fans."

Sullivan took to Twitter to apologize on Tuesday, but that didn't prevent the Niagara Gazette and Lockport Union Sun & Journal from announcing his dismissal later that same day. Sullivan was also serving as a contributor for Buffalo's WIVB-TV (Channel 4), and his status with the network was in question as of early Tuesday evening.

Since that time, Alan Pergament of the Buffalo News reported that WIVB owner Nexstar fired Sullivan on Tuesday but "has no plans to announce it." Kevin Eck of Adweek noted that Sullivan's profile on the WIVB Channel 4 website was still available as of Wednesday.

Sullivan worked for the Buffalo News from 1989 until 2018. His Twitter profile now says he's an "independent journalist" and also a "women's sports advocate."

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