They said what? Five public figures whose comments landed them in hot water.

In today's 24/7 news cycle, it isn’t hard for controversial comments about race and other sensitive topics to turn into a public spectacle. Here are five individuals who made controversial statements – and here are the consequences they faced.

2. Paula Deen

AP

When: June 2013

What was said: The celebrity chef was accused of racial harassment in a lawsuit against her and her brother, filed by a former manager of their Savannah, Ga., restaurant. The suit was later dismissed, though she did acknowledge using a racial epithet on more than one occasion.

What resulted: After her deposition in the case was made public in June of last year, Ms. Deen lost at least 12 major endorsement deals, as well as her contract with the Food Network. She’s regained some minor endorsements since, and she's launching a subscription-based online venture, the Paula Deen Network, this September.

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

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