Carson King story in Iowa

Buzzfeed summed up what the Tweets said.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/articl...orter-fired-aaron-calvin-carson?origin=web-hf

 

Twitter and FB need to have a feature that you read your texts or posts in reverse order.

A lot of us probably need to clean our shit up because times have changed, and many of us probably have as well.

 

Both had tweets that were racist.

 

The reporter needs to lose his job if he hasn’t already.

 

Yeah he's been canned

 

He already lost his job.

 

And who even remembers something they tweeted or posted eight or 10 years ago? I have almost 25,000 posts on this site. You really think they're all winners, or that I remember something dumb I might have said in 2007?
Frankly, I don't even understand why the two tweets in the Carson King story needed to be mentioned. I get the need for the social media check to make sure he's not a total shitbag, but if there's not a pattern of offensive posts -- especially a recent pattern -- shouldn't someone exercise a little common sense judgment and realize it's probably not what this guy is about?

 

Not to mention, it’s unbelievably shitty - and horrible journalism - to go after someone for something he tweeted as a teenager.

 

I disagree. It's all about context and how the tweets would be relevant to the story.

Let's say the beer kid raised money for the NAACP and claimed to be an ally for people of color. Let's say he still had those racist tweets from when he was a teenager, and the reporter found them, either through a tip or by reading through his entire feed, which isn't difficult through the power of computer programming. The tweets are definitely interesting to report in that situation.

Also, everyone is bad-mouthing using Twitter as a reporting tool. Remember, Twitter is PUBLIC, meaning anyone with an internet connection can read what one posts. If one doesn't want everyone to read their shit, lock the account down. It's that simple.

 

Or if the kid made the sign to get beer money, and it turns out he is a serial rapist of passed-out drunk girls. That's legit.

I've seen a lot of people make the connection that if he committed a crime at that age, it most likely would have been sealed and no one would know because he was a minor. But the DMR decided tweets made as a minor are worthy of being hashed-out again for no reason but to bring him ridicule.

 

That analogy would make sense if the tweets had any connection to the story, but they had none.

The fact the DMR chose to run with them shows serious lack of news judgement on the part of their editors.

 

Yes, I touch on that in my response.

True. However, the reporter should've pushed back harder, asking about the relevancy of the tweets and why the editors thought they were necessary for the piece.