Search Results for: des moines

Journalism: Follow up on the Des Moines Register fiasco

Follow up on the Des Moines Register fiasco of he past week. The reporter, Aaron Calvin, was fired, but blames everyone else, says he is the victim of a right wing conspiracy and his own tweets were all taken out of context. The interview was done by his former employer, Buzzfeed News, which itself has a conflict of interest in reporting this.

Interesting comment on FB about journalists that commonly act like a school yard bully; seems a fair description of what happened here.

Journalism: We must take positive stories and ALWAYS twist them to negativity

Young man in his 20s raises $1 million for charity. Local paper then exposes him for having made two – yes two – offensive tweets when he was 16, shutting down his charitable fund raising for the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital. Meanwhile, the reporter who wrote the story made far more offensive comments on Twitter. But that’s okay, because he’s an important holier-than-thou reporter. Or something. The larger question: Why did the Des Moines Register feel compelled to turn a positive story into a negative story? Because negativity is the main focus of today’s media.