The Ethical Journalist. Gene Foreman
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Calvin wrote that, despite his assurances to King in their interview, “he was worried about personal blowback. As is common in the world of celebrity PR, he moved to get ahead of the details that would be revealed in the profile.” Calvin thinks that is what led to King’s news conference in which he revealed the old tweets and apologized for them.
Calvin described what happened next:
Immediately after he released his statement, angry messages began to come in to The Register’s Facebook pages. The messages demanded that the identity of the journalist who had found King’s tweets be revealed, and threatened the reporter’s life and the lives of Register staff. The Register decided to publish my profile that night, and King tweeted that he bore the paper no ill will, but it was too late. The narrative that a Register reporter was trying to discredit Carson King had already been set in motion.
In the hours after King’s statement, people on Twitter found material that they used to discredit me, instead. They shared offensive tweets that I’d posted when I was younger, including statements that were meant sarcastically but that employed homophobic and misogynistic language. … Tweeting those things was a mistake, and I apologize for them.
Questions for Class Discussion
Do you think a journalist assigned to write a profile of a newsmaker should check the subject’s social media postings?
The editor of The Register said the decision about using King’s postings as a 16-year-old was “preempted” by King’s news conference in which he acknowledged the postings. Explain why, as a practical matter, King’s disclosure at the news conference left The Register with no choice but to mention the postings in some way.
If King had not held his news conference, would you have run the profile without mentioning the postings?
If you were editor, how would you respond to the kind of social media campaign that was aimed at The Register and Calvin?
Sources
Aaron Calvin, “Meet Carson King: the ‘Iowa legend’ who’s raised more than $1 million for charity off of a sign asking for beer money,” The Des Moines Register, Sept. 24, 2019.
Carol Hunter, editor of The Register, “We hear you. You’re angry. Here’s what we are doing about it.,” The Des Moines Register, Sept. 26, 2019.
Katie Shepherd, “Iowa reporter who found a viral star’s racist tweets slammed when critics find his own offensive posts,” The Washington Post, Sept. 26, 2019.
Shepherd, “Reporter who outed racist tweets by viral fundraiser leaves Des Moines Register after his own offensive posts surface,” The Washington Post, Sept. 27, 2019.
Julia Reinstein, “The reporter fired in the ‘Busch Light Guy’ scandal said he feels ‘abandoned’ by The Des Moines Register,” Buzzfeed News, Sept. 27, 2019
Aaron Calvin, “Twitter hates me,” Columbia Journalism Review, Nov. 4, 2019.
Calvin, email exchange with Gene Foreman, April 5, 2021.
Jonah Engel Bromwich, “Why ‘cancel culture’ is a distraction,” The New York Times, Aug. 14, 2020.
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