The clip was just under 30 seconds, but it hit a nerve. The backlash said more about the room than her.
After the Jacksonville Jaguars’ 27–24 playoff loss to the Buffalo Bills, Lynn Jones-Turpin, an associate editor with the Jacksonville Free Press, took her turn at the microphone and offered Coach Liam Coen something the room, nor mainstream media, did not expect. She congratulated him on the season and told him to hold his head up. He replied “thank you, ma’am”. Then the internet did what it does.
Most people called it uplifting, while others called it unprofessional. In a blink, the moment became a debate about what journalists “should” sound like in sports.
What some don’t want to admit, even some in our own community, is that Black women give love and care naturally. You’ve seen it, “the Black Woman/Wife effect”. It shifts a room, Its light that over powers darkness.
That is the part they cannot stand. Not because it is wrong, because it is powerful.
A lot of sports media culture trains people to believe that seriousness equals sharpness, and that credibility requires edge. If you are not pressing, you are performing (so they think!). So when Lynn spoke with warmth, some people did not take it as professionalism. They took it as softness. And treated that softness like a flaw.
Choosing care does not cancel your standards. Encouragement does not erase accountability, and your kindness does not mean you cannot ask the hard questions. It means you know how to hold a moment without turning it into a spectacle. Since we’re being honest, people pick and choose when they want “professionalism” to matter. They call it “unprofessional” when a Black woman brings compassion. Yet they laugh off disrespect, yelling, insults, and pile-ons as just part of the game. That is not a standard. That is a bias.
I love that Lynn did not back down either. When criticism came, she stood on her experience and her work backed by her career, and the importance of the Black Press. She reminded people that community-rooted journalism has always mattered, even when others try to act like it does not. She also pointed to the National Newspaper Publishers Association, founded in 1940, as part of that same legacy. That’s the part that truly deserves respect. Black Press has never been only about reporting what happened. It has also been about telling the truth with context, especially when mainstream narratives flatten or dismiss us.
And, of course, I see myself in Lynn. I see myself in legacy, in heritage, in heart. I see a woman who understands what it means to enter a room carrying more than a press badge. I see a woman who knows what it means to show care and still stand ten toes down in her expertise. This is where some people get it twisted. They hear a supportive sentence and assume she crossed a line. The real lines she crossed are the ones that say, “Do not bring your full self in here.” Or, “Be tough, not tender.” And, “Leave your humanity at the door if you want to be respected.” Black women break that rule every day. Not by being loud, but by being steady and staying grounded. Plus, by refusing to perform hardness as proof of competence.
My hot take is maybe because kindness forces accountability. Not the scoreboard kind, but the character kind. If you watched that clip and felt proud, sit with that and honor it. If you watched that clip and felt irritated, sit with that too. Because how you respond to Black women showing care in public tells the truth about what you expect from us.
Lynn Jones-Turpin did not ask for permission to be decent. Nor, did she apologize for offering encouragement in a hard moment. She also did not let the backlash redefine her credibility. This is not just a sports media story. This is a leadership story.
Now I want you to answer this honestly. When you saw her speak, what did you feel?
Sources:
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