FTW editor alleges a bunch of stuff after USA Today fires her over tweet

[Hot and Rickety]

Wonder if there's more to this story TK but here's the fired editor's side of things:

I am no longer working at USA TODAY. Here's what happened.

 

[cake in the rain]

She seems like a delightful person.

 

[wicked]

This needs an editor.

Also the editor asking about being Indian... perhaps inelegant, but I think it shows an attempt by someone to reach out and discover what challenges people from a certain culture face. But what do I know. I'm not the wokest white guy around.

 

[dixiehack]

This needs an editor.

Also the editor asking about being Indian... perhaps inelegant, but I think it shows an attempt by someone to reach out and discover what challenges people from a certain culture face. But what do I know. I'm not the wokest white guy around.

Yeah but if it is someone who never gave her the time of day otherwise, I can see where that would be off putting.

 

[Patchen]

I get the objections to ORU's policies. Fine. Pouring cold water on a basketball team's finest moment for something it has no control over is tone deaf and lame. There are plenty of real targets out there. ORU in the Sweet 16 is not one.

 

[tapintoamerica]

I wonder if she could have avoided execution by rephrasing the offending Tweet so that it merely cited a stat. Instead of saying, "the shooter is probably a white guy," what if she had said something like, "Eight of the past 10 mass shootings have been by white men" and provided a link or other evidence?

 

[PCLoadLetter]

Immediately after the shooting I would have bet the gunman was a white guy throwing a fit because he didn't want to wear a mask. I was wrong.

Thankfully, I wasn't so gosh darn dumb that I felt the obligation to tweet that prediction to the world.

She's certainly right about having alt-right dipshirts waiting for a chance to call for her head. I've seen that in my newsroom. We had to let a guy go who said something as a joke on a hot mic on a pointless live stream watched by about five people and every alt-right Karen and Kyle across the country emailed demanding his head. It sucks. It also means you have to be careful not to fork up in a way that'll give them ammunition.

And honestly... if one of her white colleagues had tweeted "Probably a Muslim guy" and it turned out to be a white guy and then deleted the tweet and apologized.... would she think that was enough?

 

[Matt1735]

Immediately after the shooting I would have bet the gunman was a white guy throwing a fit because he didn't want to wear a mask. I was wrong.

Thankfully, I wasn't so gosh darn dumb that I felt the obligation to tweet that prediction to the world.

She's certainly right about having alt-right dipshirts waiting for a chance to call for her head. I've seen that in my newsroom. We had to let a guy go who said something as a joke on a hot mic on a pointless live stream watched by about five people and every alt-right Karen and Kyle across the country emailed demanding his head. It sucks. It also means you have to be careful not to fork up in a way that'll give them ammunition.

And honestly... if one of her white colleagues had tweeted "Probably a Muslim guy" and it turned out to be a white guy and then deleted the tweet and apologized.... would she think that was enough?

She wouldn't? But the bosses would. And that's the problem.

 

[BurnsWhenIPee]

For a Race and Inclusion Editor to tweet this, in the aftermath of a mass shooting ... "It's always an angry white man. always," is a no-doubt about it, fireable offense.

No questions, no excuses. It doesn't matter about her employment past, past Tweets, or even if the Tweet was correct.

She, above all people, should know the impact such sweeping generalizations can have, and how it reflects on her and her employer when someone in that position makes them.

The "doesn't represent my commitment to racial equality" line smacks of the hollow "this isn't who I am" excuse that we all hear too much these days, and for her to claim she is being punished for challenging whiteness shows she really doesn't get it.

 

[cake in the rain]

I wonder if she could have avoided execution by rephrasing the offending Tweet so that it merely cited a stat. Instead of saying, "the shooter is probably a white guy," what if she had said something like, "Eight of the past 10 mass shootings have been by white men" and provided a link or other evidence?

Obviously mass shootings can be defined in different ways, but generally speaking it's black men -- not white men -- who commit a disproportionate number of them.

So not only was her tweet racist, it was wrong.

If she had said, "it's always a man," she would have at least been accurate, because except in extremely rare cases, it is a man.

 

[cake in the rain]

She wouldn't? But the bosses would. And that's the problem.

Do you seriously believe that?
Anyone who tweeted that would be gone five seconds after hitting send.

 

[BTExpress]

I wonder if she could have avoided execution by rephrasing the offending Tweet so that it merely cited a stat. Instead of saying, "the shooter is probably a white guy," what if she had said something like, "Eight of the past 10 mass shootings have been by white men" and provided a link or other evidence?

Or perhaps looked at this link beforehand.

Mass shooting database