Sportswriter fired for tweet critical of op-ed run in the newspaper

[BitterYoungMatador2]

Someone tell him the Seattle Times has an opening.

 

[swingline]

*What's this Space Needle crap? It costs how much to go to the top? Screw that.

*Grunge? OK, Boomer-lite.*

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

I especially enjoyed him spending three tweets dumping on his previous employer then wrapping it up by saying, "anyways if anyone needs some writing or editing…." This is the equivalent of complaining about your ex to another woman and then saying, "anyways, you free Friday?"

 

[MeanGreenATO]

Some of y'all have not worked for a newspaper recently and it shows. Don't blame the guy for not wanting to work/be ashociated with a place that isn't actually interested in pursuing journalism. Sure, he shouldn't have popped off. But if he was set on leaving anyways, this was a great way to go out.

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

It is if you have no desire to ever work at a newspaper ever again, which for his sake I hope is the case. I knew at the end I wanted to do other things than hit my head off of the wall with those companies so my hope is he already is/was on another path and this was his "fork this I'm out" moment.

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

*What's this Space Needle crap? It costs how much to go to the top? Screw that.

*Grunge? OK, Boomer-lite.*

People here sure do whine about the SuperSonics leaving. Who cares? They're just a basketball team. It's not like sports are part of the community fabric.

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

*What's this Space Needle crap? It costs how much to go to the top? Screw that.

*Grunge? OK, Boomer-lite.*

"And enough with the fish throwing. You guys fish a lot. We get it. No one cares."

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

I had no idea it rained this much here. How do you people deal with that?

 

[BurnsWhenIPee]

It is if you have no desire to ever work at a newspaper ever again, which for his sake I hope is the case. I knew at the end I wanted to do other things than hit my head off of the wall with those companies so my hope is he already is/was on another path and this was his "fork this I'm out" moment.

And I think it goes beyond newspaper jobs. My wife is in HR at a large multi-state nonprofit. One of the "background check" processes they do is a scan of social media accounts for potential hires. They don't friend or connect with the person, but just look at what's on their public-facing accounts, and the number of people they are considering hiring who post stupid ship that makes them ineligible to hire is significant.

This guy burned bridges that he has no idea about.

 

[WriteThinking]

Some of y'all have not worked for a newspaper recently and it shows. Don't blame the guy for not wanting to work/be ashociated with a place that isn't actually interested in pursuing journalism. Sure, he shouldn't have popped off. But if he was set on leaving anyways, this was a great way to go out.

This is the way I felt about it. I didn't have any problem with his saying what he felt about his paper printing the editorial. Journalists are supposed to, encouraged to, and required to tweet and be active in social media these days, and my sense was he just was really disappointed about it -- and that by posting that sentiment -- he was testing/hoping his paper's journalistic standards would actually prove to hold up in the face of it.

That his newspaper would be a newspaper, and tolerate something that, after all, wasn't blatantly profane or unreadable, or even an opinion that was unreasonable, and should have been expected of at least some people, even among its staff.

He was taking a chance -- a hopeful one -- that his paper would actually act like a newspaper, instead of, as it turned out, and as another poster pointed out, only a proponent of hard-right conservative-ism, or any other particular political advocacy.

 

[rtse11]

Gannett will hire him.
...
Then they'll RIF 9 months later.

 

[JimmyHoward33]

But its not the paper's position. Its not an unsigned editorial. Its very clearly the position of the person that wrote it.

And its not like its some heinous position that shouldn't be printed. Its a banal school thing. Its an idiotic hill to die on, if you ask me