How hundreds of “Jeopardy!” contestants talked themselves into a baseless conspiracy theory — and won’t be talked out of it.
By Ben Smith
May 16, 2021
It is an ironclad rule of the private Facebook group of past “Jeopardy!” contestants that nobody post about that night’s episode before 11 p.m. Eastern time, to avoid spoiling the show for West Coast viewers.
So the moderators of the group waited until 11 p.m. sharp on April 27 to reassure the roughly 2,800 fellow members that they had the crisis in hand. They had seen a contestant on that night’s show, a big white guy with a red tie, Kelly Donohue, make an odd gesture with three fingers of his right hand. “Based on the evidence we’ve seen being bandied about elsewhere, there is a real possibility he was giving either a white power or a Three Percenter hand gesture,” wrote one moderator, a middle-school teacher who was on the show about five years ago, according to screenshots provided by another group member. And though “we can’t know his intent,” he continued, “we’re not here to provide safe harbor for white supremacists.”
They weren’t the only ones who noticed the gesture. About 50 viewers had tweeted about it, suggesting variously that it was a symbol of the Ku Klux Klan or of QAnon. And “Jeopardy!” contestants searching Mr. Donohue’s personal Facebook page saw what they considered other, damning evidence, including a picture of Mr. Donohue in a red MAGA hat. One leading member of the group wrote up a public letter. Another emailed the Anti-Defamation League to report the incident.
A full 595 former contestants eventually signed on to the final draft of the letter, asking why “Jeopardy!” hadn’t edited out the moment. It went on to proclaim: “We cannot stand up for hate. We cannot stand next to hate. We cannot stand onstage with something that looks like hate.”
Their statement received wide coverage, particularly in Massachusetts, where Mr. Donohue works as a bank examiner for the state government and the CBS local news called it a “social media firestorm.” A headline on the fact-checking website Snopes got much less attention: “No, ‘Jeopardy!’ Champ Kelly Donohue Didn’t Make the ‘White Power’ Hand Gesture.”
Mr. Donohue’s turn over the barrel is hardly a new story. In America, everyone gets to be the main character for 15 minutes. I often hesitate to write about these stories because each is about something different: about deep injustice being brought to light, or an innocent person harassed by trolls, or a random person’s minor sin. Often, the argument is really about keeping things in proportion.
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