Whoa. We can certainly understand @AJC’s desire to cover its tracks. But when a major news outlet with nearly 100,000 Twitter followers tweets out something like that, it’s really hard to cover it up after the fact.

Twitter, of course, let out a collective gasp:

https://twitter.com/thew1242/status/393039742033330176

https://twitter.com/mattorr/status/393039829232926720

So far, no apology or acknowledgement from @AJC.

Look on the bright side, @AJC. You have just won Twitchy’s coveted “Deleted Tweet of the Day” award!

deleted tweet of the day - square version

Update:

This is unconfirmed:

Actually, if it’s true it might help AJC quite a bit.

Update:

An apology tweet:

Update:

Another:

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution sincerely regrets an earlier Twitter message that contained an inappropriate statement.

We took immediate action to apologize via social media and will issue an apology in Thursday’s print edition.  We do not condone such offensive messages and are reviewing our procedures to ensure this type of error does not happen again.

“Immediate action”? Really?