Situation: Carolina Panthers QB Cam Newton made a sexist remark to a female reporter during his press conference.
Grade for apology: C+
Analysis: The apology was not sincere enough, as evident in the line, “If you are a person who took offense to what I said, I sincerely apologize to you.” That implies the remark was not sexist to everyone, and he’s reluctantly apologizing.
In addition, Cam doesn’t explain how he’ll prevent saying these types of remarks in the future. He also misidentifies himself as the victim, stating “I’ve already lost sponsors and countless fans” (the actual victim is the reporter).
Here’s the full apology: “After careful thought, I understand that my word choice was extremely degrading, and disrespectful to women. To be honest, that was not my intention. If you are a person who took offense to what I said, I sincerely apologize to you. I’m a man who tries to be a positive role model in my community, and tries to use my platform to inspire others. I take ownership to everything that comes with that. And what I did was extremely unacceptable. I’m a father to two beautiful daughters, and at their age I try to instill in them that they can be anything that they want to be. The fact that during this whole process I’ve already lost sponsors and countless fans, I realize that the joke is really on me. I’ve learned a valuable lesson from this. And to the young people who see this, I hope you learn something from this as well. Don’t be like me, be better than me. To the reporters, the journalists, the moms, supermoms, to the daughters, the sisters, and the women all around the world, I sincerely apologize and hope that you can find the kindness in your heart to forgive me. Thank you.”