Mariners broadcaster Angie Mentink, recovering from recent stroke, criticized for AI usage in misleading viral video

“Tough week for women in sports media,” read a Thursday X post from self-described Christ follower Jon Root as he piled on a video of Seattle Mariners broadcaster Angie Mentink asking Google Gemini, “Good questions after a tough loss in baseball.”

Root was also referring to the situation around NFL reporter Dianna Russini, who resigned from The Athletic earlier this week following a controversy around photos of her and New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel at a resort.

The two instances, taken together, tell a story about the state of social media and modern media in general, where insinuations can be drawn from incomplete information, with the blanks filled in faster than the truth can take shape.

We live in a world where taking videos of strangers without permission or consent and posting them to the internet is normalized. The ship has sailed on that one, unfortunately. The video of Mentink, taken over her shoulder without her knowledge, is a perfect example of that. Uploaded and shared on X by a user named Cole Smith, it was welcomed by that platform’s dehumanizing algorithm, which is fine-tuned to accelerate the virality of such things.

From there, a multitude of X users, including Barstool Sports, started shaming Mentink and, like Root, creating narratives around the fact that she is a woman working in sports media. (Update: Barstool has deleted the post.)

What almost none of those people knew, and certainly never took a second to consider, is that Mentink suffered a transient ischemic attack, often referred to as a “ministroke,” in February. A day later, she suffered a “severe and unmistakable stroke” that left her paralyzed on her left side. As recounted by Aspen Anderson in Seattle Met, the former UW softball star, who was also diagnosed with breast cancer in 2017, set her mind to recovering as quickly as possible so she could return to the baseball diamond.

That she’s even out there working this season seems like a minor miracle. And AI-panic aside, if she feels the need to consult a helpful tool now and again, it seems like the kind of thing only a truly awful person would attack her for.

Mentink, a pro’s pro, took the “gotcha” criticism in stride.

That’s the other thing. The video, which was purported to be after Wednesday night’s Mariners loss to the San Diego Padres, was actually filmed weeks ago, only adding to the knowledge gap that was purposefully created to allow people with no lives the chance to feel better about themselves by attacking a woman on the internet.

Root is right in a sense. It has been a tough week for women in sports media. But less because of what they did and more because of the conclusions and insinuations that scumbags on the internet felt the need to share at their expense.