US Journalist fired over cancel culture story

[Machismo]

No, the reporter shouldn't have been fired for tweets he made 8 years ago. He should have been fired for making a hit piece on a guy for tweets that he made 8 years ago, when he was an edgy kid. The fact that this guy has raised so much money to help kids completely erases any "evil" he did as a teenager.

But the fact that this reporter got fired for doing basically the exact same thing as the guy he made the hit piece on is poetic justice, even if it isn't right.

Luckily,that's not up to you and me, that's up to his employer.

I own a small company, and I have made it clear I will not employ racists. I backed that up, by refusing a large contract with another company, because two of the guys we'd be working with were white nationalists.

That's how capitalism and speech are supposed to work.

As for bad people doing good deeds, that's a story that is as old as the end of time. Epstein and Trump are shitty human beings, yet have donated money many times. Do I think either of these two dudes is as bad as trump or Epstein? Not by a long shot. As someone who used to be racist when I was an idiot teenager in a very vanilla town, I think that a key part of outgrowing such things, is admitting to them, and letting people know what kind of a shithead some of us were in our pasts.

I know my employees, and I know most of their pasts. I would probably not fie someone who used to be racist. After all, I also used to be racist. But, I would make good and damn sure that they are not currently racist, and have actually disavowed the person they used to be. A major part of that, is actually admitting who they used to be, and not simply trying to pass it off as, "some stupid words I said long ago."

[Rozz]

Eh, not really.

Just saying, "I won't do X" isn't what people are talking about when they talk about "Cancel Culture". They're talking about the habit of people - generally on social media - to engage in a pattern of what I really can only think of as harassment in their pursuit of making sure everyone

I'll stop you there, because yes really. Just because it's on social media, doesn't make it new. It's the same thing on a new platform. Same habits, new paint.

People get caught in sensationalism and forget this sort of stuff happened before emojis and twitter.

[Malaky]

This only makes sense if you don’t see racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, islamophobia, anti-semitism, and the like as attacks on people.

The 8 year old tweet of a teenager is hardly any of this, and your misuse of the term makes you (or in this case, that "journalist") the bad faith perpetrator.

The fact he went attacking the guy the moment he tried raising a million for child charity only further adds how evil of a person he was.

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As someone who used to be racist when I was an idiot teenager

A major part of that, is actually admitting who they used to be, and not simply trying to pass it off as, "some stupid words I said long ago."

....huh.

Dude...

[Machismo]

The 8 year old tweet of a teenager is hardly any of this, and your misuse of the term makes you (or in this case, that "journalist") the bad faith perpetrator.

The fact he went attacking the guy the moment he tried raising a million for child charity only further adds how evil of a person he was.

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....huh.

Dude...

Your comment makes absolutely no sense.

[Ooid]

So in short, "I love cancel culture provided it applies to people that I've decided are in the wrong".

Sure, you go ahead and believe that. Just don't fool yourself into thinking you aren't in favour of cancel culture. You are.

I don't think people should lose sponsorships or jobs or whatever for the things they say, but I'm not an idiot. I know people go for blood when they don't like what someone says or does. Ostracism is a societal pressure to conform to maintain stability and for some reason it's been given this trendy name of "cancel culture" like it's a new phenomenon. I'm not perfect and you're right that i take some satisfaction that some of these people got their comeuppance but I haven't joined any of the lynch mobs that formed around them. It's hypocritical and I recognize that.
I think what should happen is that we need to stop with these kneejerk reactions that have been happening lately. There is nothing positive coming out of these rash decisions. But I'm not deluded to think anything will change any time soon.

[Sage89]

It's essentially boycotting or refusing to support/keep contact with people or commercial entities that behave in a manner offensive to a group. As much as people want to spin it as a gen-X, millenial, liberal thing--it isn't.

When your dad says to never mention a sports player again, because he didn't say the pledge? That's cancel culture. A buzzword people make up for something humanity has done since civilization. Cutting association due to something perceived offensive, for whatever reason. In this case, "cancel culture" is being used to describe the common practice of muckraking.

You are correct, it is not a generation thing, however the difference is the technology. In the past you would just boycott or wright an angry letter, today you can create a movement on social media to pressure someone in charge to fire or cancel a show. These things could and did happen before the internet but at a slower pace. Today small sparks can set off huge a huge firestorm in the matter of minutes everyone in the world knows about it, someone can misinterpret what you said and cause a social media frenzy that gets you into trouble.

I do not understand why people are are saying it's a liberal or conservative ideology because I see it coming from both ideologies, as a liberal, I have boycotted and expressed myself on twitter at displeasure over certain people.

[niztheundead87]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usa...amp/3791483002

New level of autism

[Saucexorzski]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usa...amp/3791483002

New level of autism

Don't worry, i'm sure no one will go through folks pictures 10 years from now, find images of those folks giving the ok sign and claiming "they are a sinner, always were a sinner and never can be anything but a sinner." Naw that will never happen.

[Wilian]

Cancel culture sounds like the alt right answer to the rabid feminist SJW rape culture. Imaginary things to group around and outrage of.

[Narwal]

People who are not and were never racist don't have a racist Twitter history to dig up in the first place.

That's why this stuff matters when it comes to light. Particularly since, unless you went back and deleted those statements, you're still actively publishing and thus endorsing them and their content. If it had been comments posted and then deleted years ago, I'd be willing to give people some leeway for personal growth, but when they're still up in your history, that's a bit harder to take seriously.

I'll also note that if you've got a problem with this stuff, you shouldn't be applauding this reporter being targeted. You should be upset about it. You are, yourself, being hypocritical here, and basing your position solely on ideological affiliation, not the merits of the situation.

1) The subject of the story (who when started to receive a bunch of money for a joke sign he held up at an Iowa State Football game, decided to donate it all ,minus $15 for a case of beer, to the opposing teams children's hospital, a specialty care facility for extremely sick and dying children) did not even know the posts existed. Probably because he's not racist and didn't even think to look back through his history.

2) The subject of the story had many more posts since the post in question, specifically calling for tolerance to end racism and hate. The news paper did not mention this in their story.

3) The original posts in question, were simply regurgitated jokes from Tosh.O. Can we really fault teens for posts that are simply mimicking a popular show on Comedy Central?

As to your response about the reporter being targeted, I will say I agree with you that if we didn't like the original targeting, you shouldn't be applauding this. However, I do understand the sentiment. It's poetic justice when someone dies on their sword that they've been swinging at others. However, understand this... The reporter simply dug it up... it was the editor who said "run it in the story". The editor then came out, to save her own skin, saying "we hear that you're mad we ran those details in this story... so we fired the reporter". She took NO responsibility for the decision that SHE made. She simply threw a new employee of the paper under the bus and walked on by whistling.

Edit:

If you think this is a right, or a left response to cancel the DM Register, it's not... I live in Des Moines. I went to that football game in question. I have almost exclusively liberal friends (because I met them all in college). Everyone was outraged by this because it was attacking a feel good story that was raising money for dying children. The guy raising it wasn't the story... the cause was. The newspaper tried to steal the story and turn it into something for them to profit from.

[Zython]

Cancel culture sounds like the alt right answer to the rabid feminist SJW rape culture. Imaginary things to group around and outrage of.

When we have a rapist as President and two rapists on the Supreme Court, I think it's clear that one of these things is real.

[Tiwack]

There's no winners and only losers when everything follows you and nothing can be forgotten.

[Mormolyce]

Only if you can't see the difference between victim and perpetrator, attacker and attacked.

You're just deciding that things you allegedly oppose are okay as long as you've decided that the victim is "in the wrong".

That's not opposing the cancel culture, that's wanting to control who it's aimed at.

[Warning]

Holding people accountable for shit they said or wrote over 5 years ago on social media to me is ridiculous and inquisitorial. It puts an inhuman standard on people to force them to remember and repent for every single thing they did wrong over such a long period. Most crimes that aren't extremely serious have statutes of limitations that are shorter than that for this very reason. Because we recognize that sometimes its better to just move on and leave people alone if their current behavior isn't problematic.

[Saucexorzski]

Holding people accountable for shit they said or wrote over 5 years ago on social media to me is ridiculous and inquisitorial. It puts an inhuman standard on people to force them to remember and repent for every single thing they did wrong over such a long period. Most crimes that aren't extremely serious have statutes of limitations that are shorter than that for this very reason. Because we recognize that sometimes its better to just move on and leave people alone if their current behavior isn't problematic.

Humans are predators, they will prey on others. Right now "racists" are easy prey sin racism is the greatest of "sins" currently.

[zenkai]

Depends on the exact context.

Before you call that a cop-out, as a simple example, making a joke where the punchline is "I'm being racist, aren't I an idiot" would not, itself, be racist. It's about racism, and that's different. Jimmy Carr does this kind of thing a lot.

If the joke is about mocking a disadvantaged community based on being part of that community, then yeah, the person making that joke is a bigot.

Even to the point of Carlin and the interviewer acknowledging that neither of them find this crap funny, either.

How come you won't forgive a guy who apologized for echoing a racist joke he saw on Tosh.0 but you forgive this girl for being racist based on her own biggotry? What's the difference

Like I said, forgiveness and understanding is something that is apparently beyond people like yourself.

I've always maintained the possibility for people to change, I just expect them to disavow their past conduct and to never repeat it.

And before you claim this is somehow a change I've just made for this thread, why don't we check some post history? Here I am back in early March, in a thread about a conservative hired by The Atlantic;



Or this earlier thread, from 2016, regarding Robert Byrd's change of heart; https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...w#post42364873

This ain't a new stance of mine. It's a basic set of principles I live by. Nor are they principles I change based on who the subject is.

I don't get the double standards

[Saucexorzski]

How come you won't forgive a guy who apologized for echoing a racist joke he saw on Tosh.0 but you forgive this girl for being racist based on her own biggotry? What's the difference




I don't get the double standards

white male vs minority female? i'm going to go with racism and sexism.

[zenkai]

1) The subject of the story (who when started to receive a bunch of money for a joke sign he held up at an Iowa State Football game, decided to donate it all ,minus $15 for a case of beer, to the opposing teams children's hospital, a specialty care facility for extremely sick and dying children) did not even know the posts existed. Probably because he's not racist and didn't even think to look back through his history.

2) The subject of the story had many more posts since the post in question, specifically calling for tolerance to end racism and hate. The news paper did not mention this in their story.

3) The original posts in question, were simply regurgitated jokes from Tosh.O. Can we really fault teens for posts that are simply mimicking a popular show on Comedy Central?

As to your response about the reporter being targeted, I will say I agree with you that if we didn't like the original targeting, you shouldn't be applauding this. However, I do understand the sentiment. It's poetic justice when someone dies on their sword that they've been swinging at others. However, understand this... The reporter simply dug it up... it was the editor who said "run it in the story". The editor then came out, to save her own skin, saying "we hear that you're mad we ran those details in this story... so we fired the reporter". She took NO responsibility for the decision that SHE made. She simply threw a new employee of the paper under the bus and walked on by whistling.

Edit:

If you think this is a right, or a left response to cancel the DM Register, it's not... I live in Des Moines. I went to that football game in question. I have almost exclusively liberal friends (because I met them all in college). Everyone was outraged by this because it was attacking a feel good story that was raising money for dying children. The guy raising it wasn't the story... the cause was. The newspaper tried to steal the story and turn it into something for them to profit from.

Good points, wanted to address this part. I cheered it on because it was a taste of their own medicine, as you say, in other circumstances I wouldn't. I agree the editor should be disciplined as well .

[Malaky]

You're just deciding that things you allegedly oppose are okay as long as you've decided that the victim is "in the wrong".

That's not opposing the cancel culture, that's wanting to control who it's aimed at.

Nope, it's not.
I'm not attacking anyone: they are.
If you attack... I have no problem with the attempt backfiring and "cancelling" you instead.
It's that simple.

Eventually all the attackers will be cancelled by their own evil and we can keep on progressing and have fun together, without moral zealots deciding what's allowed and what's not.

[Machismo]

Nope, it's not.
I'm not attacking anyone: they are.
If you attack... I have no problem with the attempt backfiring and "cancelling" you instead.
It's that simple.

Eventually all the attackers will be cancelled by their own evil and we can keep on progressing and have fun together, without moral zealots deciding what's allowed and what's not.

Then you are supporting "cancel culture," how ironic.

If you like something, watch it. If you don't, don't. If you wish to speak out against something, then speak out. If nor, then don't.

It's weird that you guys are so opposed to free speech.