A Philly Newspaper Ran A Story About Gabby Douglas... But Attached A Picture Of Simone Biles8/17/2016 NBC- A Philadelphia Daily News columnist has been left "mortified" after the paper mistakenly printed a photo of Simone Biles alongside her story about Gabby Douglas in Wednesday's edition.
Ronnie Polaneczky penned a column about the onslaught of mean comments Douglas has been receiving on social media during the summer games in Rio. The piece was the Daily News' cover story, and when readers opened to the column, they found a large photo of Biles, mid-leap, smack in the center of the copy. A caption reads: 'Gabby Douglas: Olympic gold medalist, need we say more?' "It makes you want to bash your head against a wall," Polaneczky told NBC10. "I'm mortified." Let's just look past the fact that there is likely an intern or entry-level employee working for the 'Philadelphia Daily News' that typed "black american gymnast" into Google Image and just ran with the first picture that came up. That's not even me trying to highlight the racial aspects of this story. I genuinely believe that in 2016, with the online tools at everyone's disposal, that it's IMPOSSIBLE to make this mistake if you identify the person by their actual name instead of their skin color. That - however - is neither here nor there, because I would rather discuss the wildly different paths these two are on. Simone Biles is reaping the rewards of winning multiple Gold Medals. Endless amount of praise. National acclaim. Visits from (and PDAs with) her biggest celebrity crush. Meanwhile, Gabby Douglas - who also won herself a Gold medal - is basically the only American athlete not named Ryan Lochte whose reentry back into the United States we apparently wouldn't mind denying. Roasting her for not needlessly putting her hand over her heart during the Star Spangled Banner? Frivolously declaring that she doesn't smile enough? She's getting hit from all angles with false, pointless narratives that make her look like as much of a role model for this country as Donald Trump. Literally the last thing she needed was a sympathetic editorial that then associated the problems she's facing with the actual face of the person that doesn't currently have any problems. Way to go 'Philadelphia Daily News', why don't you just kick a woman when she's down. I know this was just a mistake - albeit a fairly inexcusable one - but was there any worse athlete it could have currently happened to? Some black, American, highly decorated gymnasts just have all the luck I guess, huh?
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