Will journalists’ suffering never end? After everything they’ve been through, after being the real victims of their own smear campaign against the Covington Catholic High School students, now they’re having to contend with people tweeting nasty things at them.
Journalists: spread false reports for days accusing a kid of racism. The kid gets death threats as a result.
Also Journalists: Hey don’t tell us to “learn to code,” that’s targeted harrassment.
— James Hasson (@JamesHasson20) January 28, 2019
Is there no end to this injustice? NBC News reporter Ben Collins, for one, is fed up over Twitter’s inaction on all the “targeted harassment”:
How the hell is this still happening @delbius, @jack?
How many times are we supposed to take your word for it that you’re actually working to fix this? It’s been a decade.
— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) January 26, 2019
Beyond belief useless, @twitter, @jack, @delbius. pic.twitter.com/4bWnZH711R
— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) January 27, 2019
Hey @TwitterComms,you told me on Friday you were guys were going to pay attention to these threats this weekend?
If you can't do it when people tell you explicitly what's going on, when can any person expect to be even remotely safe from death threats on this platform?
— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) January 27, 2019
.@oneunderscore__ says Twitter has done "absolutely nothing" about the 4Channers targeting laid-off journalists, despite telling him they would pic.twitter.com/h7ZRhhr1eH
— AM2DM by BuzzFeed News (@AM2DM) January 28, 2019
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Death threats are never justifiable, and there’s no excusing them. But much of the “targeted harassment” that’s got journos all pissed off right now consists of jokes about them following their own past advice to blue-collar Americans to “learn to code.” That’s a far lesser offense than doubling, tripling, and quadrupling down on false narratives in order to stir up outrage against a group of high school boys. NBC News, where Collins works, was among the shameful perpetrators of the smear campaign that generated doxxing and death threats against the boys. And Collins himself outright blamed Fox News for last year’s failed mail bomb campaign against CNN and prominent Democrats, adding fuel to that fire.
So forgive us if our well of sympathy for ego-bruised journalists has all but run dry.
Catholic boys in Kentucky unavailable for comment. https://t.co/e4avFuOg4F
— Kerfuffle Actual? (@shoshido) January 28, 2019
Ask the Covington boys what it’s like. Grow a set.
— MC (@FreeToTweet1975) January 28, 2019
So when the Covington kids get doxed and death threats because you guys portray a false/misleading narrative it's ok, but when a few dudes with gropher avatars tell you to die it's all of a sudden not ok?
— HIV+ ? (@Blitz_Gods) January 28, 2019
But when the media targets a bunch of high school kids, or an out of the way pizza place? Can’t seem to get the same level of anger there, can you?
— Taro Tsujimoto (@RCannon74) January 28, 2019
Sorry, Ben, if we’re not swayed by journalists’ selective outrage.
Please for the love of god, cry harder
— Kebeh Nayyeh (@KNayyeh) January 28, 2019
BOO-HOO-HOOOOOOO https://t.co/Dz4dCnPji0
— Learning to code (@jtLOL) January 28, 2019
booo freaking hooo
— StandYourGround (@superstein61) January 28, 2019
— Sowzee (@Sowzees) January 28, 2019
What a bunch of pussies. https://t.co/LTj8sJXK7E
— RBe (@RBPundit) January 28, 2019
And hypocrites.
Journalists are constantly reminding us how special and important they are. How much better they are than the rest of us. So maybe when they start holding themselves to higher standards and stop engaging in targeted harassment of their own, we’ll give them a listen. Until then, we have no tears to shed.
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