Salon.com > Susan G. Komen for the Cure

Should NFL players be forced to wear pink?

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 14:00:00 +0000

As a sports writer, Peter King is undoubtedly used to getting flak for his opinions. So when he tweeted last week in despair at professional football's month-long, rosy-hued display of breast cancer awareness, "Please. Not pink for a month, NFL. A week, great. But a month?" the response was predictably unfavorable. "You got a problem w/ cancer awareness?" wrote one of his Twitter critics, while another asked, "Really? Is it that serious? If it's raising money for cancer is it really worth complaining about?" and yet another declared, "Get over it for those we've lost and survived, we honor them in any way we can."

In the face of the retorts, though, King pressed on, musing, "Is breast cancer the only charity NFL should support?" To the person who asked, "What if each team could pick one week in October where they wear the pink?" he retorted, "Perfect. That'd be ideal." But over at ESPN's radio 104.5, Jay Sanin was appalled. "ARE YOU SERIOUS?" he demanded, suggesting, "Maybe instead of being an ignorant idiot about life-threatening diseases, Peter King should stick to being an ignorant idiot about the NFL."

Komen president resigning

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 14:17:00 +0000

DALLAS (AP) — The president and the founder of Susan G. Komen for the Cure are stepping down, the nation's largest breast cancer foundation said in announcing a major leadership shake-up. The high-profile departures come amid continuing fallout from Komen's decision earlier this year to briefly end funding for Planned Parenthood.

President Liz Thompson will leave Komen next month and founder Nancy Brinker, who has long been the public face of the charity, will relinquish her chief executive's role for a position focused on fundraising and strategic planning, according to a statement released Wednesday by the Dallas-based organization.

The foundation announced in January that it had decided to eliminate its funding for Planned Parenthood for breast-cancer screening. Komen said it made the decision because Planned Parenthood was the focus of a congressional investigation, which was launched at the urging of anti-abortion activists.

Komen restored the funding after a three-day firestorm, but it didn't quell the criticism. At least five other high-ranking executives also have resigned, and organizers of many Race for the Cure events saw their participation numbers drop.

Santorum surges as culture wars heat up

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:05:00 +0000

Thrilling news, Americans! After today, we all have an excuse to pretend that Rick Santorum might win the Republican presidential nomination. And we will get to pretend this for weeks, or as long as he can pretend to have some sort of vaguely defined "momentum."

After weeks of Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich angrily hurling wads of third-party cash at one another, Republican voters have realized (for the second or third time) that Romney is an aloof job-destroying multimillionaire rentier and Newt Gingrich is an erratic narcissist scam artist. Being mostly ignored turned out pretty well for Rick Santorum, whose repellant bigoted sanctimony reads as righteous piety to the die-hard evangelicals and old cranks actually showing up to vote in these increasingly depressing Republican contests. And so, as Steve Kornacki writes, he's the new not-Romney, and he's poised to win Missouri or Minnesota or Colorado or some combination of the three today.

Santorum was also the recent beneficiary of one of those slightly fishy Rasmussen polls showing him besting the president nationally 45% to 44%.

How the Internet changed Komen’s mind

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:57:00 +0000

It started with a tweet. And in the end, that's what won the war. On Tuesday, Planned Parenthood sent out a no-punches-pulling alert that "Susan G. Komen caves under anti-choice pressure, ends funding for breast cancer screenings at PP health centers." By Friday, Komen for the Cure had said it was sorry, and reversed its decision.

Within minutes on that Tuesday bombshell, the tale had become not just a news story but a social media explosion, with a flurry of responses pouring out across Facebook, Twitter and Komen's own message boards – overwhelmingly disapproving of Komen for the Cure's severing of its ties to Planned Parenthood. And in the process, it became an object lesson in how to handle a crisis, how to make it worse, and then how to fix it.