Deadline has offered an apology for an article titled, “Pilots 2015: The Year of Ethnic Castings – About Time or Too Much of Good Thing?,” which suggested that the surge of ethnic casting on television was “too much of a good thing.”
Loads of celebrities, including Shonda Rhimes, have spoken out against the article.
Now, Deadline‘s Mike Fleming Jr., in an interview with Peter Bart, is talking about the mistake.
“I don’t believe you can can make an unwise story disappear and pretend it didn’t happen. I observed how Amy Pascal raced around with knee-jerk apologies to anyone who’d listen, after those stolen Sony e-mails surfaced. Her actions felt like panicked damage control to me; we decided to face the consequences and take our lumps. We did that in the comment tail following that story, where over 700 readers teed off on us,” Mike said.
“That original headline does not reflect the collective sensibility here at Deadline. The only appropriate way to view racial diversity in casting is to see it as a wonderful thing, and to hope that Hollywood continues to make room for people of color. The missteps were dealt with internally; we will do our best to make sure that kind of insensitivity doesn’t surface again here. As co-editor in chiefs, Nellie and I apologize deeply and sincerely to those who’ve been hurt by this. There is no excuse,” Mike continued.
Read the entire apology over at Deadline.
