Mr. Warzel displays his White Privilege by completely overlooking the racial dynamics of this incident. To many African-Americans the accusations of sexual assault levied against Kobe Bryant were reminiscent of the hundreds, if not thousands of Black men falsely accused of raping white women and then subjected to arrest, conviction, imprisonment (if lucky) or extrajudicial killing i.e. lynching. Ms. Somnez’s tweet smacked of racial animus and hostility given that it was tweeted literally 2-3 hours after Kobe Bryant’s death, with no context whatsoever nor framing in the larger picture of the man’s life. It was bush-league and disrespectful. It is completely reasonable to query if bias against Black people factored into her motivation to do what she did and when she did it. And don’t tell me that she can’t be racist because she’s a Latina. Anti-Black racism, and “Colorism” is a thing, and thrives in Hispanic communities.
48
"... [the] tweet smacked of racial animus and hostility ..."
That's uninformed speculation. In fact, the Post reporter alleged that she had been "sexually assaulted" herself, as explained in the linked piece by the Post's media critic.
And that's the problem. The Post reporter cannot be an impartial observer.
Instead, the reporter devolved into editorializing when she repeated in her Tweet a headline with the words "disturbing" and "half-confession". That's a biased headline befitting a tabloid newspaper.
11
@Anonymous Ex-cop I don't think she did it out of racism. It was more of an anti-man viewpoint - that what he was accused of was so awful that we can't give him or his family any sympathy or be reminded of how great and beloved he was. If he were white, I think she would have said the same thing. I find many younger people are so quick to criticize other people's faults without realizing that someday, they too will be faced with their own mistakes in life as they age. For the record, I am a 60-year old, white, female.
12
This story is one of the reasons why Trump will probably get re-elected.
Strictly speaking, Ms. Sonmez did nothing wrong, and those who trolled her absolutely deserve to be ridiculed, censored and punished.
But emotionally, Ms. Sonmez made a disastrous mistake. And we humans are first and foremost emotional creatures - our emotions rule our actions.
It is absolutely right that Kobe Bryant's flaws and sins be mentioned along with his achievements.
But NOT the day after he and his daughter and 7 others have died tragically in a plane crash. In this moment, people are feeling deep sympathy for him and his family, and it is one of the great things about humans that we come together and support each other in difficult times.
To bring up an alleged assault from 15 years ago in this moment is just dumb. Not wrong, but dumb. It feels like rubbing salt in the pain that people are already feeling.
It perpetrates the myth that liberals are cold and unfeeling, living to punish those they deem imperfect.
In a biography of Kobe, sure, this will be an important aspect to cover. When you're talking about #metoo, it is perfectly valid to cite Kobe's case as an example - regardless of what you make of the conflicting interpretations.
It's all about timing. And understanding emotions.
Did she really want to make survivors feel heard, or did she just feel bitter than a man who had once done something terrible was getting so much praise?
Bitter actions are rarely wise in hindsight.
318
@Denis
Thank you for this. It is not about "Culture Wars." In this social media world context, Ms. Sonmez made the very poor decision to stand up in the middle of a man's funeral service - in front of his wife and children - and scream out that he was an (accused) rapist.
There is a time and a place for everything. Real people who care about other real people and deal with real people understand this. Journalists and those who scream for attention on social media feeds - away from real people - live in their own ego-driven little bubbles.
Kobe, his daughter, and others are dead. Ms. Sonmez has now gotten all this attention on herself, including multiple stories in this publication. Congratulations, Ms. Sonmez. You've made Kobe's death about yourself. It's a perfect lesson for today's media.
51
@Denis Yes, when I die, I hope everyone immediately tells the world about all of my worst days, my worst actions, my worst words. Doesn't everyone think that's a good idea, to have the worst about you mentioned on your death?
27
The concerns raised by Mr. Werzel have a much broader scope. The vulnerability many of us face online is grounded on legitimate fears. For example, those of us who are brown-skinned minorities understand the rise of groups such as the Proud Boys, and see white nationalism unchecked.
What does this have to do with posting something online? Here's an example. Some time back I posted a comment on the NYTimes regarding a report on a recent Supreme Court decision. I've been an attorney for forty years, and I believed that the writer had missed a significant point about the decision. I posted this comment under a pseudonym.
Shortly thereafter, a NYTimes editor emailed me, and mentioned that I'd made an important point, and asked whether I would submit my comments as a letter to the Times. However, the editor also told me that I would need to use my real name and the city where I lived.
I'm a person of color (Middle Eastern ancestry) with an obvious Middle Eastern name. I live in a very Red state. Given this administration's nod to militant white nationalist extremists, I knew that I would be doing nothing but making myself a target for the more extreme Trumpists. And I have not only my own safety to think about, but that of my family's as well.
Many of us who are neither white nor Christian understand that we are no longer safe in Trump's America. And the last thing we would do is to identify ourselves online - which is nothing more than placing a target on our backs.
631
@Orion Clemens
I am not comfortable saying anything that i believe -- if my name is attached to it. No matter how reasonable and rational it is.
Anything from a product review or restaurant review to a loving statement on spirituality could set someone off.
We have come to a time when ONLY the most extreme people feel comfortable expressing themselves publicly.
I can only imagine how much scarier it would be to post something as a woman or minority.
77
@Orion Clemens You bring up an excellent point about the importance of internet anonymity and the implications of losing that anonymity. I am a white male, so don’t have the same fears for my immediate family’s safety the same way you do (though I have enough friends and family with tenuous legal status that could be threatened if I upset the wrong person), but the dangers of internet brigading are very real to everyone regardless of race or ethnicity.
Even in a relative safe space like the NYT comments section, where some of the Internet’s most thoughtful and rational go to post, expressing a dissenting opinion is frequently met with such scathing responses that I think most commenters don’t realize can cause psychological trauma even if there is no actual threat behind them.
Re: Kobe and tweeting about the 2004 allegations - why can’t people empathize both with Kobe’s family and the added grief reopening that would will bring, and victims of sexual assault who feel marginalized by the unconditional lionization of someone who it seems, at the very least, felt his behavior warranted an apology?
We are fortunate on this planet to have talented human that inspire us in myriad ways. None of them (save Mr Rogers, maybe?) have lived a perfect life that did not bat least incidentally hurt someone. Why can some people not accept that without lashing out? And why can’t we recognize our own biases when we decide what’s forgivable and what’s not?
52
It’s scary enough to do that even if you are white. All you are doing is making a target of yourself for some nutcase.
16
Me. Warzel, you should have mentioned that that WaPo journalist, Felicia Sonmez, has frequently engaged in “cancel culture” herself. When the journalist Emily Yoffe (doing the job of a journalist) wrote an investigative piece about Felicia (https://reason.com/2019/08/23/im-radioactive/) and when the Atlantic’s Caitlin Flanagan dared to share her opinions, Felicia tried to get them both fired. She has also frequently engaged in public shaming of others on Twitter. Maybe the culture war came for Ms. Sonmez because people are getting sick of those who constantly wage it. Felicia shouldn’t pretend to be shocked when that happens. Journalists don’t get to be immune from the culture they’re helping to create.
34
Somnez has made a career of destroying people and actively trying to get any of her critics fired. Give us a break. She is a troll--one that actually has some power.
29
I left journalism, in part, because of people like Felicia Sonmez. In my day, exploiting those we reported on was not the name of the game but the practice was growing. Exploitation has, of course, since blossomed beyond anything we could have imagined pre-social media. The story Ms. Sonmez tweeted was old news. Anyone with the ability to pull up Google could find it; the rape accusation was mentioned all over the news. What was her endgame in tweeting the story? Did she feel she was divinely chosen to educate us clueless plebes about Bryant's history? Again, what was her endgame? I argue her endgame was exploitation. Good for Marty Baron. Every news organization has a robust social media staff to tweet out the content of the sites. Did Ms. Sonmez not know this, and felt she had to step in to the readers' rescue? Was she afraid we'd be in the dark without her? Marty Baron led reporters in the stunning Boston Globe series that revealed the pedophile priest cover-up in the Catholic Church. He knows the difference between public service and exploitation. Ms. Sonmez does not.
25
It's a stretch to call what Felicia Sonmez did in the aftermath of Kobe Bryant's death a work of journalism. She tweeted a link. She did not write a story. Nor provide analysis. Nor articulate opinions based on facts. I would respectfully submit that it was Felicia Sonmez who was trolling, adding to the pain suffered by Kobe Bryant's family. She should apologize.
In NYTimes's obituary on Kobe Bryant. Marc Stein did write about the rape charges. He did so with context, and he did not receive threats. Stein engaged in real journalism, Felicia Sonmez just trolled. If Charlie Warzel cannot tell the difference, he has no place writing for NY Times.
34
Yeah, no. This piece is just an existentialist exercise designed to take away from the fact that she used poor judgement. "The new internet rules made me do it," is your genuine answer/justification?
"Too soon," the throw away comment following an attempt at being "edgy," after writing something tasteless, should have been how her piece ended. At least then the author could have made clear her striving for attention.
In the end she got clicks, adulation from colleagues, and a whiny sycophantic defense. Don't worry, you'll now get your clicks and adulation as well.
17
Opinion Writer, Charlie Warzel, smartly begins to depict the difficulty of maintaining guardrails between reporters, managing and executive editors and Twitter with the big trouble visited to Washington Post's reporter, Felicia Sonmez. After she tweeted a link to article about Kobe Bryant's alleged rape soon after his death management at her paper, Kobe's fans and trolls went after her with a vengeance. Warzels' effort to shine light on the knots of profit, celebrity, social media, journalism and management in news media provides worthwhile insight to readers and viewers looking for the facts at this mixed up time.
1
well, what kind of person posts the worst thing about another person as soon as they die? also, the charges were dropped so to do so is basically trolling in itself.
17
When the battlefield favours the trolls, change the battlefield.
4
Felicia Sonmez is the culture war, insisting that everyone be remembered for their sexual transgressions. It's disgusting, selfish and rude.
14
Wait, the Post has a union? Does the virulently anti-labour Jeff Bezos know about this???
8
"Perhaps it’s most accurate to say they’re an asset and a liability for both parties." Of course. Anyone who has studied economics knows that there are always trade-offs. The problem is the lack of honesty and candidness about the trade-offs, and the tendency for nearly everyone to believe there is only one side to the story. Sonmez wants to tweet (in her own self-interest) about Kobe Bryant's rape accusatons while the smoke is still rising from the helicopter wreckage? There is a downside to this, she was reckless and behaved at the very least in bad taste. What did she think was going to happen?
4
Ask Ted Rall how things are going for him with the LA Times.
1
No, Ms. Sonmez should not have been suspended, but she is more a hater than a hero.
To link to a story about his sexual harassment lawsuit while the body is literally still warm, as is the body of his teenage daughter, is classless.
Journalists love to pontificate, but sometimes right and wrong is not that hard to figure out. Multiple stories came out a day or two later evaluating the man in full including his trial.
Ms. Sonmez's inability to wait even a few hours says far more about her than the deceased.
16
First off, She shouldn’t have been suspended for her poor taste. Second, I love this piece you wrote. So full of self pity. The mainstream media, including the NYT practices cancel culture every day (see Joe the Plummer and the Covington Kid) then it blows up in your face it’s so hard to take. Grow up, man up, you’re in it, so deal with it - try reporting and writing facts and drop your agenda based daily drivel.
11
The editor failed to publish my previous comment, because it criticized the writer's argument (a common failing of your newspaper's online comment policy.) I petition for a second try:
This problem would go away if news organizations simply did not permit their full time reporters to post on social media --in an account mentioning their company's name -- without editorial approval.
After all the reporters are not allowed to publish on their OWN company's website without editorial approval. The whole idea of having a reporter/editor hierarchy is for the organization to filter content according to their own policies.
Tweeting is not news. It's self-promotion, and sometimes, it's political activism from some people whose jobs give them a high horse to sit on.
These activities should be the province of the newspaper's publicity department, or of reporters tweeting from their own private accounts that do not mention the newspaper's name.
9
Felicia Sonmez made a mistake by posting the story on Twitter, but it was a mistake because she posted it *on Twitter*. That marketing site deliberately aids and abets the loser and other bigots while banning those who REPORT violations of its ToS, and STILL, SOMEHOW, convinces the media and employers they are an important public service and tolerable in a professional (or any) setting.
Any other site that does what it does would get an employee fired, or a public figure "cancelled", if the site even showed up in their History—"behavior that does not reflect the values of our organization and our firm commitment to tolerance and diversity", yada yada. But as with the loser in the White House, consequence Teflon coats Twitter.
Despite all that and despite being a private megacorp that wants to destroy the very same non-fake news groups that legitimize it with their lichen-follower begs, Twitter and fellow anti-democracy anti-privacy site Zuckerbook are now all but synonymous with the web to those who don't, or would rather not, know better. You know better, so don't do that!
Friends don't let friends use bigoted Dorsey Twitter.
Journalists should stay off Twitter. Editing a journalist’s writing by a professional editor is standard practice in the profession. There is no editing of postings on Twitter. When a journalist post on Twitter she violates professional standards of her profession. Journalists who violate this standard practice ought to be disciplined by their employer or by their professional association.
9
It was in poor taste, so soon after the tragic news broke that included 8 others besides Kobe.
7
I thought it was weird for Wapo to stifle the free speech of this reporter. I think it is wrong. I do not know much about the rape case, but I want to know more.
But far more than knowing about the case, I want Editors to respect free speech.
3
I'm no shrinking violet, but whatever happened to voicing your opinion without physical threats and trolling? Even the left is doing this with the author of American Dirt. I mean whatever happened to deciding not to buy the book and emailing the publisher your disdain without demanding it be taken down or else? Why can't people tell this reporter hey, this isn't the time to bring this up or whatever else they feel is wrong? I don't know if this is because it's so easy to post without thinking or if perhaps certain segments of our population always experienced it and social media just now makes us more aware, but dude, get a life or at least spend your time learning to write complete well thought out and structured sentences.
1
I don’t get it. Sonmez tweeted a legitimate news story and got assault threats for doing so. She exposed the people who were threatening her.
The only step that didn’t happen was that the Post didn’t forward the names of those people to the police so they could be investigated. Shame on the nutjobs threatening Sonmez, and shame on the Post for not defending her.
5
Felicia Sonmez is hardly a poster-child for press freedom. She has a history of making unsubstantiated claims against men, and an obvious bias. On the one hand, a social justice warrior will point out the high rates of incarceration for African Americans. When it suits her, she tarnishes an innocent man's name at the time of his death with charges that were obviously insufficient to support a conviction. She had a clear agenda to influence the narative on Kobe and that went beyond her brief at the Post. Glass House Girl is sleeping in a hotel paid for by the Post. BOO HOO!
10
A classic two wrongs don’t make a right. While her referencing Kobe’s possible bad behavior may have been inappropriate in a respect for the dead kind of way, the troll attacks are truly frightening and clearly the greater of the wrongs. That she revealed the identity of her attackers was right and noble. Anonymity is the veil behind which fearful cowards hide while spewing their venom of hate for their own perverted pleasures.
4
I hate Twitter and stay off of it because it is such a platform for trolls. I think the Post made terrible decisions here. The paper should have done more to actually talk to the reporter involved and been more protective when she received death threats. I hope the Post leadership will meet with journalists to devise clear policies for tweets and also promise to do more to back up staffers attacked by troll armies.
4
I can’t believe someone took the time to write this defense of twitter. It reads like the old joke about reading Playboy for the articles. Twitter is an obscenity. Sorry.
8
We seem to be in an era of a tepid, bland, no opinion opinion only. Unless you've got a PR person to fix your media impressions. Otherwise, it's fake news and fair game for bloodshedding attack.
Newsrooms still aren't ready for Trump. They still use both sides do it. They NYTimes doesn't call Trump a liar. They treat what he says and does seriously.
For example the Mideast Peace "plan" is doomed from the start. Why did you give it serious coverage? Why report on a mountain of garbage, in detail?
2
Give up Twitter. If the president uses it you know it is bad.
6
The 800 pound gorilla in the newsroom is the ever-growing thinness of the wall between editorial and marketing/advertising. The puzzling, as yet inadequately response of a long-time newspaper manager like Marty Baron, speaks to this. There was a time when ad sales reps weren't even allowed to set foot in the newsroom. Now, any hint that a reporter's actions might threaten the relationship with an advertising customer has to come into consideration. Baron once took on the Catholic Church in Boston; now he knee jerks, without explanation, over a tweet?
All to say, this is not just about whether and how a reporter's engagement with social media impacts the news or colleagues' work. It also bears on the fragile economic conditions newspapers deal with, an issue that has gone well past profitability and into becoming an existential threat. No advertisers, no money; no money, no newspaper.
It's important to work to understand how reporters and newspapers executives act and respond in this new world, where the power and freedom of the press, once revered for holding a place in the Constitution, now can be threatened by on-line trolls. Perhaps it's time to re-visit the idea of publicly funded journalism: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/28/business/media/28subsidy.html
Is this different from religious extremists who demand death as retribution for blasphemy?
3
Timing is everything and it’s bad manners to trash a deceased person less than a day after they perish in a tragic accident with their teen age daughter.
If you get in the mud with the pigs then don’t complain about getting dirty.
6
On October 21st, 1835, an angry mob almost tarred and feathered William Lloyd Garrison for publishing “The Liberator” and daring to call for the “extermination of chattel slavery.” He was regularly assaulted, his printing press was smashed on numerous occasioned, he was imprisoned in Baltimore, and the Governor of Georgia put a “dead or alive” bounty on his head.
Despite this, he kept publishing until December 29th, 1865, when the ratification of the 13th Amendment made the purpose of “The Liberator” moot.
Now what’s all this fuss about these big, bad Internet trolls?
2
Don't speak ill of someone within 24 hours after their tragic death. It's probably a good rule of thumb.
5
Ummmm what?? She posted the people’s names. That’s not what a reporter should be doing. She should go to the police and the people who sent her terrible emails should go to jail. Don’t make this something that it’s not. “Culture war” is just another phrase invented by Russian propaganda to divide us. Rise above it. Are we really divided? Or does the media just keep saying “we’re divided” “were polarized” we hear it so many times then it’s just a fact???? Not a chance! We say stupid things in the anonymity of online discourse, but in reality we get along much better than you all make us believe. The media really needs to stop saying these negative phrases as if they represent real life. New York Times, I URGE you to consider how your reporters regurgitate these negative phrases. Russia wants us to believe we’re polarized and divided in some “culture war!” Enough is enough!!
5
Social media is like a bad disease so if you don't want to be a victim stay of it.
3
Charlie, your piece and view display what is wrong with journalism. After someone's has died, why cite or link to that type of old story. Especially, a situation in which the charge was dropped. Could the writer not wait for awhile? I hadn't paid much attention to the story, but I will now remember the name and always have a negative view. Probably won't remember your name, but will also have a negative view.
5
Did Mr. Warzel read the Op-Ed by Iskra Fileva on this in his own newspaper?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/opinion/kobe-bryant-death-tweets.html
And isn't Sonmez trolling the deceased Bryant?
I think the Tweet, so soon after the crash, in which his young daughter was killed, displayed incredibly poor judgment. Has Warzel go anything to say about an old-fashioned sense of poor judgment in this case?
6
WaPo is my hometown newspaper. Under Marty Baron (with Jeff Bezos’s money) WaPo won Pulitzers for reporting on Trump and the Access Hollywood tape and for reporting on sexual misconduct allegations against Roy Moore. Baron was Boston Globe editor when it won a Pulitzer for exposing clergy sexual abuse. For him to criticize a WaPo journalist for reminding the public about rape allegations against Bryant (which he essentially admitted) is both odd and unbelievable, to put it mildly. If Harvey Weinstein dies while Baron is editor, will WaPo lead its reporting on the major films he produced and will Baron lambast a reporter who separately notes the rape allegations? Two serious questions about Sonmez’s suspension - was Bezos involved, and was her tweet criticized because Bryant was an African-American?
3
one of the problems with all of these articles that are being written now about this incident is that they're being written *now*....and not 140 minutes after it was learned that a helicopter plowed into the side of a mountain and the bodies of 3 children and their parents were strewn around a field of fire.
The tweeter was narcissistic, tone-deaf, and truly without sympathy or mercy. She wanted attention and if it took a 17-year-old event from an article written 5 years ago to get that attention, she was going to do it.
6
Don't read or write Twitter.
Never liked the name either. To twit or not to twit?
Obviously, if a semi-literate, uneducated, irresponsible
and deceitful public figure finds this platform to his advantage-
Trumpeting his lies ceaselessly, not twitting-
it is most certainly not a space that works for me.
3
Internet. Facebook. Twitter. Snapchat. and who knows what's coming. It will all end in tears. Meanwhile I'm going to lay my head down by my Wi-Fi device and try to speed my own decent into blithering idiocy. That way I won't have to worry about the demise of civil face to face communication and disassociation from the real and natural world.
4
The USA was 48th in press freedom in 2019 and will be lucky to finish in the top 100. Why not let the corporations who buy the advertising write the stories they allow us to read?
1
Reading about these First World problems among the privileged scribblers of the 4th Estate, it does make you wish that we could transport them to countries where they have to encounter actual adversity. Some place like Russia, China, Turkey, Mexico, et al. Some place where kvetching about trolls in the adult playground you see in this photo takes a back seat to having government agents after you or not being able to support yourself. Golly, I'll bet they don't even get a proper vacay in these benighted parts of the world.
5
"Twitter is a Gordian knot of news and opinion that can’t be untangled."
You can ignore it. Twitter is like a junior high school cafeteria. It is not analysis. It is not reporting.
4
The Post made a series of mistakes apparently because of the increasingly old-fashioned tradition of resting a few moments before speaking ill of the dead unless they're, say, Hitler or Charles Manson. But, of course, the reporter was simply covering her face with someone else's writing (or sharing) and not really speaking in the usual sense. This is why busy little lawyers in corporate law departments draft social media policies for companies so everyone, management included, knows what is permissible. The WP guidelines must be byzantine indeed since it required thirty-six hours to parse its doubtless rich language.
As a longtime reader, subscriber and frequent commenter on NYT articles, it is clear to me that comments are moderated for a LOT more than "civility".
Lately, my submit/post average is about 0.250.
3
This is very simple.
When the body is warm, 9 people are dead and the public is mourning, maybe going "Kobe was a rapist. Don't forget everyone!!!" will get you a very impassioned and negative response from the public. It was easily avoidable with common sense.
Explore his complicated legacy after he is at least in the ground.
5
"Inside publications, news and opinion bleed together; opinion writers report while reporters opine via news analysis."
The Times can be included among those publications. And that is why the Times should have a Public Editor -- to highlight cases where those lines have been crossed.
1
"Newsrooms need to get smart, prepare and protect their foot soldiers."
Or maybe reporters should have an ounce of empathy and humanity before posting a years-old allegation before the body even stops smoldering.
3
In fairness, journalist should publish a list of Felicia Sonmez’s moral and legal shortcomings in life, both convictions and allegations, after her passing. How wonderfully tasteful of Felicia Sonmez. Hopefully this is not the new low standard for mourning etiquette.
3
I especially like the paragraph that begins: "Twitter is a Gordian knot..."
I follow a Times Magazine columnist, Thomas Chatterton Williams, via Twitter even though I dislike Twitter in the extreme.
His recently published memoir "Self-Portrait In Black and White - Unlearning Race" led the usual flood of Tweets since the American concept of "race" is a subject of frequent mention in the Twitter world.
When he tweets on his book or about one of his columns this leads to a completely unintelligible exchanges that in my view are worthless. In contrast he engaged in Letter exchange with Iona Italia that was at least intelligible.
In my view public figures who twitter about random posts are in danger of lowering their intellectual status.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
We fear for our safety in America's malign Twitterverse. The new normal is disinformation in real time. We are all exposed to the global culture war.
This article suggests a collapse or absence of decency and judgment on the part of its author.
3
I just posted my thoughts about this matter at WaPo, too. Corporate America has to be informed about online "trolls" who's objective is to blackmail and/or terrorize people and companies into submission.
Companies can't use "normal" HR and PR practices with these online PCness trolls. These people know how HR and PR works. They got IBM and Disney to fire people using PCness company policies to fire their enemies. Billion dollar companies fell to these tactics.
This has been happening since the Gamergate 2014 culture wars.
These trolls have been practicing some very horrid censorship practices Mao or the KGB would be proud of. GRU trolls differently than Chinese and their corporate media arms like Tencent. But it's the same games in the end -- "shut up or else".
The reporter was doxxed. So it was a targeted attack.
WaPo is slow on the uptake of these PC wars and it shows (and still allows serve-yourself posting and replying -- the concept was great years ago, but a 50,000 bot "army" can wreck comment sections. I saw what happened on The Hill's comment section during the 2016 elections -- thousands of posts a s-e-c-o-n-d bot replies. These days a human has to eyeball if posts/replies are kosher or not to publish, or a business comment section can become a "hot spot" propaganda factory, with "sanitized" links from "credible" comments with hundreds of upvotes).
She had no respect for the dead. Kobe dies horribly with his daughter and almost immediately the journalist in questions says—hey don’t forget about this rape charge!!! Every culture around the globe gives a brief time of mourning which generally means a period without jabs by community or otherwise. Violating this rule that has been recognized throughout time should come with consequences. I have no sympathy for her.
4
Anyone who sends a death threat has voided his right to anonymity. Good for her.
2
twitter is a wasteland of non thought (e.g., trump, et al); why anyone wastes the moment it takes to read such drivel is beyond me...
Based on Felicia Somnez’s experience, if Harvey Weinstein died in a helicopter crash he would immediately receive global forgiveness. The only real difference is the chronological order of transgressions. Frankly I can’t tell the difference, #MeToo or #NoMeToo.
2
A couple days ago nobody had ever heard of Ms. Somnez. Now there is a story about her in the NYT. Not real ethical, Ms. Somnez, but well played.
Commenters wonder why young journalists do what she did? Really?
3
I support the reporter but how about waiting a day? The Washington Post should have publicly supported her while have a private talk. I think civility was in order. Just allow a few days of mournng before exploring Kobe Bryant's complicated legacy.
Two facts for 2020: newspapers at their core are businesses and Twitter is largely for people that row their boat through life missing an oar. A small segment of Twitter users may be people trying to arouse people short an oar, for some forsaken reason, but the core group is what it is. Who exactly do you prod on Twitter to get stories? It is the same as slapping a grizzly bear with a stick. You will get a response and most likely a story, but was it really worth it.
"What Will You Do When the Culture War Comes for You?"
While nobody would doubt that "war" or "struggle" (Kampf) is involved in these matters, and while I am fully aware that in the US "Culture War" is also used for matters of politics, perhaps someone in those newsrooms, theoretically involved in journalistic "culture" should come up with a new phrase. There is very little of culture involved here, nothing of human intellectual achievement in any of this.
Find a new phrase. There was a time when journalists could actually turn a phrase.
2
When a story is published by the Washington Post it's fact-checked by editors for accuracy, bias, tone & countless other things. This protocol is vital in a breaking news story when it may be difficult to pin down what really happened. When Kobe died the headline was: A Sports Icon is Dead. America Mourns. That was the story. Period. Anything that didn't hew to that line was way off-message. Criminal charges against Kobe that were dropped in 2004 and a civil suit that was settled out of court could have & should have been addressed the next day. The problem with Twitter is it allows reporters to freelance with no oversight. There was nothing wrong with Ms. Sonmez tweeting the link to a 2016 article from The Daily Beast. But her timing was terrible. That's why you have editors. Someone has to be the adult in the room. Someone has to see the bigger picture. That's responsible journalism.
4
"Each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done" Bryan Stevenson. We are all human. We laugh, we love, we have successes and failures. Sometimes epic failures. We suffer and we cause suffering in others, sometimes incredible suffering. At other times we engender awe filled happiness and sprinkle it on everyone and then there is everything in between. I have been sexually assaulted and I have hurt others deeply. Bless your heart Kobe and all the others who died that day for your personal best, for living your lives and all that those lives brought with them; big, small, hurtful, joyful and almost always complicated. "You are another myself".
1
Never question the character of the cult of celebrity.
It’s actually much simpler than this article makes it seem: don’t dance on people’s graves. What this reporter did was disrespectful to the dead and reprehensible—her editors were right to sanction her. Of course, this also doesn’t excuse the online mob from being uncivil and hostile.
3
RESPECT.
Ms. Sonmez showed an incredible level of self-serving disrespect for Kobe and his FAMILY.
She deserved to be fired and leadership at the Post needs to develop a spine.
Kobe dies and right on top of it, his family has to deal with this garbage.
If she really felt compelled to do it, although I can't imagine why, Sonmez could have waited a few days, at least.
Utterly disrespectful.
3
I hope the people that made death threats against the journalist are investigated and prosecuted if the evidence warrants.
3
Twitter has become the sewer of the “civilized” internet.
2
Which culture is warring with...what exactly?
1
The average troll is a depressed with their no-life and they hate everyone who is better-looking, in better shape, and has more social and/or monetary status--so essentially they hate everyone and everything because lets face it, trolls aren't named as such because they are cute--they are equally ugly on the inside and outside. Once you know that, you can annihilate them--of course they may point an AR-15 at you, but they can't do anything with their bare hands, so don't worry.
Absolutely deplorable what the post did. Sickening. Corporate pandering at best.
Perhaps some of NY Times readers are familiar with a related story: https://reason.com/2019/08/23/im-radioactive/
It would appear that the trolls will get all of us at some point.
1
"... the organization [Wash. Post] reviewed whether she had violated the company’s social media guidelines."
Tweeting a link to a biased news article from a journalistic competitor should indeed be prohibited.
The Post should, instead, require that reporters who want to editorialize on current events do so by submitting an OpEd to their paper's opinion editors.
Seattle | Pending Approval
There's plenty of negligence to go around and I hope media outlets take Mr. Warzel's warnings seriously. The actions of invisible incel trolls should be given the descriptive psychological labels they deserve, and media giants like the Times who work hand in hand with tech giants who aid and abet, if not actually profit off these cretins, should up raise the stakes in exposing them. While I might not trust myself in a mob surrounding Ms. Sonmez' or anyone else's attackers or even trolls, may I offer a lesson that might be learned from Ms. Sonmez' awful experience that unless one is intentionally carving out a professional niche, it might be best to first consider the relevance of one's personal history to the story it is one's job to report. The first belongs to those who have been invited to share it for mutual strength and support, to grow a movement, etc.; the other, the main story, belongs to millions. The niche option isn't a bad one; intention sharpens the sense of when to wield it. For that option, a headline subtltle for the good of all might be: And How to Protect Yourself.
The main problem isn't trolls or jumping the gun on uncertain news or even having an opinion, its the urge to "feel seen" in this attention-driven economy. Young men and women who've grown up in the panopticon of the social internet over the past fifteen years have lost all sense of decorum or sense of self. Collectively (and I'm generalizing here) we no longer seem to have an internal "shame gyroscope" that keeps us from acting like idiots. We are rightly roasted when we do...
tweeting is used mainly by second rate reporters too lazy to write or report real news. Will all the garbage on Twitter, why do they expose themselves to all the backlash that comes from it. Twitter is not journalism...
2
Suspending reporter Felicia Sonmez for tweeting a Daily Beast article was censorship. I was going to say “soft censorship,” but it’s more than that, and it is unjustified.
Although I am inclined to believe from everything I’ve read about the Kobe Bryant rape allegations, that he thought the encounter was consensual—although the young lady apparently did not—I also believe that placing Sonmez on leave for merely tweeting an article about the rape allegations was wrong, and contrary to what I thought were the ideals of legitimate news organizations.
I consider myself a center-progressive who follows politics and news coverage pretty closely, but this hysterical scolding of anyone who strays from the party-line-du-jour (in this case, Kobe Bryant’s instant martyrdom) is moving me (and probably countless others) away from following the news; the finger-wagging is too painful to watch.
Washington Post editors should apologize for their knee-jerkiness.
1
Social media has made an echo chamber out of your hallowed newsrooms. It's like a combination of groupthink and virtue signalling. Give me a topic, and I can tell you exactly how it will be reported in and editorialized by every left-leaning news outlet.
1
I block em. Period.
1
Ms. Sonmez is a hypocrite, and a pretty vicious one too.
She worked hard to have Caitlin Flanagan and Emily Yoffe fired for telling Jonathan Kaiman's side of the story of their private and apparently consensual (if very drunken) sexual encounter in China.
And she did get Kaiman fired from the L.A. Times without any of the due process so loudly demanded by her allies at The Post.
But at least by her behavior reminding everyone of Kobe Bryant's imperfections while his body was still warm she has set an example of the stories people may tweet about her and her treatment of "friends."
3
Gee, what happened to the Marty Baron of "Spotlight"?
She was just reporting a fact.
Odd, nothing about posting a 4 year old article right after his death and what is the expected response?
This is a terrible decision and trying to justify it by saying "she was doing her job" is more nonsense.
We are more likely to want to defend the press when they don't act like horrible people. That's any profession, so not sure why you think journalist get a pass?
2
Joe Rogan pointed out in one of his podcasts that liberals are like piranhas. If one of their own is showing signs of weakness or injury, the others just devour it. He said this in reference to an article about a transgender white man who ran for his college's office of multi-cultural affairs coordinator position who's job it would be to promote cultural diversity on campus. The leftists at the school encouraged students not to vote for him, because she was now a he. This is the "culture war" you speak of. It's just liberals attacking liberals.
Social media platforms, more often than not, reward the savage beast, and punish equanimity and self-control. The Culture War(s) always have been, and always will be, with us. Social media are, among other things, the mixed martial arts of public discourse on steroids, (usually verbal abuse and threats, and, at times, physical assault) having been "monetized" amazingly successfully. What will I do if it comes for me? "Speak softly and carry a big stick" - and if it gets too ugly, run and hide.
1
"Newsrooms need to get smart, prepare and protect their foot soldiers. It’s the least they can do."
So owners and managers stayed up all night, thinking: "What's the absolute least we could do?"
1
People who choose to insert themselves into breaking news and ongoing controversies have to occasionally face consequences.
I don't see a problem with this.
"Hey, lots of people are in mourning, so I should be needlessly incendiary and point out that their hero was accused of rape" shows a shocking lack of judgment, and was asking for blowback (which in Twitter is pretty much *always* death threats).
If one doesn't want to be treated as a provocateur, one needn't act as a provocateur. Some of us even expect better from reporters and others seeking respect.
6
No one benefits from Twitter, with the sole exception of Mr. Dorsey, its CEO.
My representatives, and two senators, are on there. They should get off. Trump is on there and, well, that speaks for itself. Putin is on there, like he owns the place. Twitter is the place you go, when you feel ineffectual and want to complain at other Believers while doing absolutely nothing for the country, just as Wall Street planned.
A reporter would be far more credible, if he or she stuck to serious news outlets only and skipped the high school locker room.
2
Her journalistic judgment led her to make the the story about her, which seems to be the new modus operandi of our society. Did she bring any data about the accident, Kobe's daughter and the other victims? No, but she did win the race to the bottom and brought the Post along with her.
Ms Sonmez's credibility is shot. Fire her. The Post's dance on suspending Ms Sonmez was sad at best, but the reason they should eventually fire her is pretty obvious. Although, she has insulated herself with the new teflon cover and cannot fired.
Her defense is self serving and ducking the real issues at hand and due to her obvious skilled use of social media, should have certainly known what the negative response would be. Claiming troll victimhood while wading in that pond is disingenuous.
Claiming shock at the replies and threats should be reason to not have her on staff. To think that it is clever to pick that issue in Kobe's past within mere hours of his death shows bad journalistic judgement.
9
Journalists have to earn their keep by, among other things, roiling the waters. This is especially true for "online" journalists, since there's a line...and it seems to be mandatory in the #MeToo era when, if you are male, you are NOT innocent until proven guilty. One or more accusations is enough, and how dare you question the veracity of or motivation behind them!
Add to this the instant ferocity and almost lynch-mob mentality of social media (at its worst). Even with the abbreviated format--or, perhaps because of it--there is a deeply established tendency to pick out politically incorrect "fighting words" and to not really comprehend the larger point.
Sometimes the larger point is so plain and so wrong that it deserves to be (at least) challenged. Like raking up settled dirt on a revered celebrity that we have no way of verifying because the accused has been tragically killed, for instance. Even if it could be proven, the bad timing and insensitivity of such a claim shows--not the accused, but the accuser--to be the predator.
3
It's amazing how unregulated Twitter, Facebook, and all social media are. I'm glad she posted the people who threatened her online. Not only that, I think those people should get visited by law enforcement and charged with making threats. That's the only way to stop them. Will all the trolls get stopped? No, but it will slow these attacks.
Also, Bryant's legacy should be questioned. His alleged rape was plead down and there was a charge of imprisonment. This is probably not a good guy we are eulogizing. It's one thing to have infidelities, it's another to be violent about it. But because he could make baskets, he got a free pass for it. Not only that, the victim in Colorado was sent thousands of death threats and not one person was convicted for making those threats. Again, social media has no consequences as the likes of Zuckerberg just laugh all the way to the bank.
Identify, locate, and arrest the online attackers. Also, Twitter should ban these people for life, but they don't want to do that either. It would take too much work. Better to just have the wild west of online attacks and not do anything, I guess. Social media is lazy, entitled, and careless.
3
I have no culture. What would they attack? It all seems rather created. But then, I have never booked face or twitted.
1
Totally agree with you. Why can't we just be more civil and kind to each other; no human is perfect on this planet so let's have a little compassion and that includes the editorial staff of the Washington Post. Needless to say, Twitter and Facebook are a cancer on our society; they need to be regulated.
I can't for the life of me understand why anyone has a Twitter account. Its a place for celebrities to pretend they are having a spat to draw attention to themselves when they have a new album or movie to hawk. Its a place for has-been celebrities to get into bodyshaming spats at 3 a.m. Or for Ellen to send you the latest cute cat video.
1
The problem with Somnez’s Tweet is that it was insensitive. Bryant was a hero to a lot of people and he died. Shouldn’t there be some time for mourning? Did she really have to dredge up a 15 year old controversy for which Bryant was never convicted within hours after his death? If he had been conclusively found guilty then maybe so. But he is not here to defend himself against accusations that may or may not be true.
4
@MsB
You can work for a famous newspaper but that doesn't mean you have class
2
Back when Twitter was first getting started, I happened to be at a journalism convention, where I suggested that news organizations needed to think long & hard about how their reporters would use this new tool. I suggested that it might someday be confusing or upsetting to readers to see reporters' personal & political views spread all over social media, when there was a clear expectation of objectivity in their work.
Fast forward to today, when there are very few journalists who AREN'T on Twitter, and I think I was right. During the protests in Ferguson, for example, one of the prominent reporters was a guy who was a very vocal supporter of Black Lives Matter. His feed was filled with "woke" statements and pro-protestor opinions.
And yet, I'm supposed to believe, as someone reading his official news stories, that he's impartial? That's he definitely reporting accurate info on the protests? Please.
I'm sorry but journalists can't have it both ways. If you want the reach and speed of Twitter, fine. But don't complain if it also diminishes your credibility or hangs you out there for criticism.
2
I believe the tweet by the reporter was in poor taste. She may have been "doing her job" as some have mentioned in the comments. But just because you can does not mean you should. I think that she should have tweeted a week later or maybe more as a matter of record. Because what else was the purpose of the Tweet? To mention this so soon after his death is just plain bad and tone deaf to billions of devoted fans all over the world. It makes her look insensitive and headline grabbing reporter.
5
After being a pretty active tweeter, I stopped checking my Twitter feed almost six months ago. One particularly rough news day back in August, I decided I needed a break from it. One day became two, then three, and I realized how refreshing it was. I still tweet occasionally, but I never check my main feed. From a distance I can now see how much of a waste of time it is - and do people in their 30s and 40s (and older) really need to participate in juvenile memes?
You don't realize how silly it all is until you step away from it.
3
No one has come for me yet. But then I would never "tweet."
2
Let's stop using social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc) as a news source. And that includes trump's tweets and retweets.
4
Far too many younger journalists engage in sloppy writing...because they simply don't have to do better: Writing for a Facebook and Twitter world, statements are made without any effort to back them up. Case in point; this piece.
Mr. Warzel writes: "The tweet highlighted the fact that Mr. Bryant’s legacy is 'fraught and complicated'..." without so much as an explanation or defining what about Kobe Bryant's life was Fraught and Complicated. Last I understood, a legacy entails the totality of one's life.
In the case of Ms. Sonmez, there needs to be clarification. Here, Warzel states about Sonmez: "... by discussing a part of Mr. Bryant’s legacy..." Ms. Sonmez did not *discuss* any such thing; she tweeted a stand-alone link to information about the rape case without explanation.
If this represented her journalist chops, it was woefully deficient. (She didn't even acknowledge the subject was deceased).
The tweet- represented Ms. Sonmez's journalistic view that the totality of the subject's life was summed up by a rape allegation. If that is the standard of journalism, we are all in trouble.
4
Mr Warzel has accomplished something I truly agree with: outing the obvious decline of a once honored institution- newspapers.
I have attempted to post very similar remarks on both of NYC's premier 'print' publications. It might be noted print newspapers made a hard copy that was not easily deleted.
When the NYTimes first printed "analysis" on the front page of my delivered print edition, I was aghast. The bright line between news and opinion (personal opinion, in fact) was 'deleted'.
Of the more than several attempts to note this phenomena I have made previously in the offered 'comment' section, all were lost to Mr. Smith's memory hole.
The idea of journalism has been tarnished, not only by political blowhards; but, the actual organizations housing the journalists. The often used term "slippery slope" appears to have no bottom...
I wonder how, and if, that this slide will be reversed. Orwell predicated both the means, but the way civilization will be destroyed (and in 1948 no less).
I do have hope we survive and resurrect journalism's bright line.
4
Someone is salty the legacy media no longer has a monopoly on political thought and the American mind.
"Inside publications, news and opinion bleed together; opinion writers report while reporters opine via news analysis."
Couldn't have said it any better myself. It is for precisely this reason that most people don't trust MSM...
2
Leave the Tweeting to those who need “fifteen minutes of fame”.
@Kirk Cornwell
The president
Stay off Twitter. Do not use social media to interact with the public. If you’re famous, don’t have an account at all, like Kate McKinnon, for example. You can live a productive, happy life without it and you close off the widest avenue the culture brigands have to get at you.
WAPO was wrong. Good thing Khashoggi didn’t tweet something the WAPO editors didn’t like before he was killed or they probably wouldn’t have stood up for him like they didn’t stand up for this woman and her death threats.
There's plenty of negligence to go around and I hope media outlets take Mr. Warzel's warnings seriously. The actions of invisible incel trolls should be given the descriptive psychological labels they deserve, and media giants like the Times who work hand in hand with tech giants who aid and abet, if not actually profit off these cretins, should up raise the stakes in exposing them. While I might not trust myself in a mob surrounding Ms. Sonmez' or anyone else's attackers or even trolls, may I offer a lesson that might be learned from Ms. Sonmez' awful experience that unless one is intentionally carving out a professional niche, it might be best to first consider the relevance of one's personal history to the story it is one's job to report. The first belongs to those who have been invited to share it for mutual strength and support, to grow a movement, etc.; the other, the main story, belongs to millions. The niche option isn't a bad one; intention sharpens the sense of when to wield it. For that option, a headline subtltle for the good of all might be: And How to Protect Yourself.
Some newspaperman, Marty Baron. Totally unaware of how large a portion of the population heard the news and did not think Lakers or star or basketball, but instead, rapist.
Like it or not, that’s the truth and it was Bryant himself who set those wheels in motion years ago. The case may have been forgotten by some, but not by all—not by a long shot.
Sonmez was doing her job, filling in the corners, making sure that a complex legacy was fully understood. Being a “sports hero” doesn’t overshadow everything else.
If anyone should understand that, it ought to be the editor. Instead, he put his reporter in real danger by calling her out instead of defending her.
Baron’s the one who should be out on leave.
3
As a Coloradan when I heard Kobe Bryant had died I remembered the rape accusations. I don't really follow basketball and I don't put athletes or public people up on pedestals. He put a ball in a hoop really well, he didn't cure cancer.
So while it is sad innocent people were killed I am not sure Kobe was one of the innocent. But how dare we point this out when there is hero-worshipping taking place.
4
Everybody has the right not to force me to share their opinion.
1
Aside from some valid general points, this reads like a typesetter's union, defending a wayward typesetter-- a craft defending its own, come what may.
Nowhere in the article does the author raise the question of how Ms Sonmez contextualized the negativity of her tweet, and what the pros and cons were. In fact, she couldn't have contextualized, because that requires more bandwidth than Twitter gives her. So she lobbed it in, with what appears to be no thought to how the readers would contextualize it. She should have kept her pointed point about (dismissed) rape charges for later in the week.
1
I have had numerous educated people tell me they don’t know what to trust anymore. They go with their gut when it comes to trusted sources. I blame the current popular model.
When a supposedly unbiased reporter does a terrific story and then turns around to do a tilted analysis or tweet, how can people trust his or her reporting?
And when a jumble of reporting and analysts and opinion all get jumbled up on the main page of a website, many people don’t look at the byline; they just see that the same reporter who reported on the impeachment is now calling Trump a liar.
Journalism bears the blame. They need to straighten up the lines between reporting and opinion and analysis.
Oh my; the victimhood olympics in full swing! (woman, perhaps Latinx, alleged survivor ). And a big media newsroom feeling simultaneously self righteous, indignant and sorry for itself.
Social justice writers writing about other writers to an audience of writers.
Outside of two or three Manhattan zip codes don't expect much sympathy.
Oh - and author Mr Warzel did manage to get in a dig at Trump.
Naturally.
6
This essay postulates that there is a difference between online "news" sources such as Twitter and the Main Stream Media.
Millions of us lump all "journalists" together as inherently untrustworthy.
3
If you post public comments on Twitter or on news articles, you should be ready to face criticism or threats. If you are a public figure or represent an outward facing organization, the burden is in you to understand the ramifications of your posts before pressing submit. Maybe the old addagge "if you can't take the heat, don't stand in the kitchen" sums up participation in the cess pool known as social media.
4
The WaPo reporter should not have been suspended. But I'm sick of young journalists using Twitter to not-so-subtly make themselves the story (and so many are so young...who else could work for such poor wages following the death of the old media business model?).
Editors should make it clear to their staff that being a journalist is *not* a ticket to celebrity—if that's what you're looking for, get out of my newsroom! Remember when we didn't know what well-known reporters looked like, much less their sexual histories? Enough.
3
There used to be a distinction between news and social media, between accusations or charges and convictions, and between reporting news and partisan advocating, not any more. The fix for the twitter social media mob is difficult, but its not hard to keep it out of the newsroom if management wanted to do so. However, if it bleeds it leads and pays the bills right?
Back before everyone with a blog and no editor or common sense was treated as a journalist on par with members of WHPC, the MSM used to require a degree in journalism and some actual relevant experience. As you point out, now they want a provocateur with a twitter/social media following. How exactly did you think that would turn out?
Then again "Absence Malice" the media can say whatever we wish about folks and they are powerless to do us any harm. Democracy is served, or is that dies in the Darkness?
https://youtu.be/2SGe-IywHXg
2
"At a larger organization, though, those same attributes may quickly be seen as a liability. Publications hire diverse outspoken writers and then get anxious when these writers start tweeting about politics. "
But oddly, that didn't stop the New York Times from hiring Sarah Jeong.
No, she didn’t violate the social media policy and the old story was relevant, but not the day after the guy died and before a funeral could be held. It was in colossally poor taste. I say all of the above as journalist myself. I don't know that she deserved to be suspended or fired over it, but I doubt I would want to employ someone with such a lack of common sense if I were her editor.
4
I read the WaPo story linked.
I then hit the link on the WaPo story about the prior sexual complaint filed by the suspended reporter.
Which prompts me to ask this not columnist:
1) do you think the tweet in question met the WaPo standard of "fairness"? A single negative tweet, with no context or balance, shortly after a tragic death? IS this "fair"?
2) the "fairness" and judgement issue is compounded by the fact that the tweet was related to and basically reinforced her own sexual assault experience - thus she was personalizing the issue. That is not "objective", biased, possibly in bd faith, and it is unprofessional (and her own admitted behavior during her sexual assault accusation raises a whole additional set of issues).
4
To be honest, I think the case could easily be made that Ms. Sonmez was the troll. I don't agree with the suspension, but the rest of it is pretty hard to defend as "journalism". She's not perfectly innocent here. Excuse me if I see it as using someone's death for grandstanding and attention seeking.
6
Most people who agree with this comment probably will not read it since they chose to live most of their life in the real world and not in the virtual world of the internet. Notwithstanding my proud membership in the troglodyte community, I offer a bit of obvious advice. If you don't use social media, you likely will not be attacked on social media, or, at least, you won't be aware of it. Many folks will think this an ignorant comment, and they may be correct, but it works for me. I think I'll go for a walk in the woods with my dog now.
3
This writer sadly confuses responsibility and competition with decency! He and many of his colleagues such as Sonmez should look in the mirror as they define what decency actually means. Thankfully, at least their editors had some idea about that. If Somnez felt some sense of duty to remind people of another person’s failings, if you call that journalism, fine... but you don’t do it the day they died. As her editors said....extremely poor judgement.
4
Marty Baron should be put on administrative leave.
1
RESPECT.
Ms. Sonmez showed an incredible level of self-serving disrespect for Kobe and his FAMILY.
She deserved to be fired and leadership at the Post needs to develop a spine.
Kobe dies and right on top of it, his family has to deal with this garbage.
If she really felt compelled to do it, although I can't imagine why, Sonmez could have waited a few days, at least.
Utterly disrespectful.
6
Although all this may be unpleasant and require everyone to be careful, maybe it won't be catastrophic: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2018-12-11/deepfakes-and-new-disinformation-war . These problems are ubiquitous with our current technologies. Even newsrooms will have to find better ways to deal--we already have tribal affiliations to FOX and MSNBC. This is not to say they are equivalent--but it does raise the question: are news media even capable of handling this on their own?
I pay to subscribe to NYT. I am happy that I can afford it and to support journalism.
I expect to read well-researched and written articles, and cogent opinion pieces.
Perhaps I am wasting my money if I can read the Twitterverse instead? I am disgusted that reporters are expected to use social media. We need less of it (witness the Tweeter-in-Chief), not more. Real news should be in real media. Any other forum is suspect as fake news.
1
"Inside publications, news and opinion bleed together; opinion writers report while reporters opine via news analysis."
Do you realize how little credibility even the New York Times has with most Americans? How narrow the range of opinions and experiences on your pages? Everyone from the same constellation of the same elite schools, with the same progressive cosmopolitan boilerplate, blurring the lines between news and The Narrative.
Twitter is like a drug and the product doesn't have quality or shelf life. Journalists should get off Twitter, news and opinion should be separated by a firewall, and the editorial social justice activism mindset needs to sit down.
1
When reporters are publicly opining about the news that they report on, that is when people begin to distrust organizations. Tell us the news, and leave the bias and opinions to the opinion columns.
1
Newsrooms need to get their reporters to delete their private Twitter accounts. Reporters are using these accounts to breach the newsroom/editorial wall. Problem solved.
2
The world isn’t binary.
I’m a US Army veteran that swore an oath to defend the US Constitution. If you try to jab me by noting that the Constitution was written by slave owners in an attempt to provoke me, you’ll be met not with a retaliatory tirade, but of a resounding “well, yeah. That’s American history 101, and that was bad.”
You see, as amazing as this may sound, it IS possible for more than 1 thing to be possible at the same time. Both things are true: slavery is bad. The Constitution is the bedrock of American society. Weird, right? One true fact does not make the other true fact go away.
It is both true that Kobe Bryant was engaged in an act of horrific violence, and a role model for millions. Now, I know that TV and YouTube tell you that this isn’t how things are supposed to be, what with their neat little plot devices that wrap up in a 45 minute long episode and all, but real life is not binary. So quit acting like you have to take a side. Because you don’t.
3
The last thing we Americans want to hear about anything is the truth.
1
when did "...getting noticed..." for the sake of "...getting noticed..." become a foundational value to advance a career as journalist?
uncovering a story and reporting it accurately should be the only criterion for building a career in journalism.
2
But the purpose of her tweet was to "troll" wasn't it?
As 99% of the people online were mourning, or at least shocked, by the deaths of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Giana, this journalist thought it was a good opportunity to undermine the good feelings people had about Kobe Bryant with the fact he wasn't charged with rape and settled out of court.
Kobe Bryant was an extremely visible public figure. She could have tweeted that article any day he was alive and it would have hurt Kobe Bryant's image and wallet more, so why on the day he died? The only real answer I can come to is that her tweet was designed to inflame and score points with some of her followers. That's probably why people found her so repugnant.
So, if you don't want to be trolled online, a good defense is to not participate in trolling. If you must because your career needs a boost, well expect to get dirty.
4
No offense, but the folks have zero sympathy for media organizations that have made money off of clicks and subscriptions by pushing “culture war” and “America is divided” themes.
The chickens will eventually come home to roost.
3
A very poor example to make this point, when there are so many more poignant ones. Somnez used very poor judgement or worse, in posting that link the very day the man die. It just shows a lack of common sense commiserate with her position as someone who is supposed to understand the pulse of society. To double down and now make her the victim is beyond the pale. I, for one, miss the journalists of old. Perhaps journalism is simply becoming irrelevant.
4
I literally have no idea about what the article is talking about. Who can tell me?
From the perspective of a nonzuser of Twitter, it appears to a poisonous assault on our culture; especially given that the worst man in America has staked his claim to it, it should die an ignominious death rather than allow it to poison our civic culture. It is a harmful virus no less than the coronavirus.
1
social media and the media at large have been silencing and cancelling conservatives for years..give me a break
If you put it that way, everyone is the culture war, including Felicia Sonmez. Since when does the profession routinely call out the dead, hours after a catastrophic accident which also killed the subject's child, in a form which allows no deliberation or due process? Is this journalism or exhibitionism?
Or is it simply a crusade, without judge or jury? Felicia Sonmez, whose defenders refer to her claimed experience as a victim of sexual assault as an apparent justification, has a culture war history all her own:
https://reason.com/2019/08/23/im-radioactive/
6
And what if the newsroom is already filled with trolls?
Who else goes online several times a day to broadcast to the world every instantly achieved opinion and indulge every craving for attention?
2
Follow the money,
1
the whole idea that a female journalist can be threatened to the point that her address is posted online and she is terrified enough to sleep in a hotel is terrifying ..... regardless of what they are commenting about, there needs to be some sort of protection for journalists .... aside from the fact that it is one of the most dangerous professions in the world, simply making a sloppy comment shouldn't become life threatening ..... people can get away threatening on social media because there is no way to trace these trolls ..... that should be the next technological victory .... how to trace and reveal people who threaten on social media ..... maybe then it will stop .....
3
Twitter needs to die. Useless and increasingly dangerous.
4
Charlie, you are so completely and utterly clueless. You just don't get it.
Firstly, if the culture war really came for Felicia Sonmez, she wouldn't be suspended for 36 hours. She would be fired. High profile men who say sexist things like a ill-considered joke are not merely suspended, they are fired from their jobs.
Part of the problem is that Democrats can say whatever they want on the internet and virtually nothing happens. But everyone is too afraid to say something Republican as they could lose their livelihood.
Also, you should not be using Twitter in the first place. At all. (Social media is a cesspool and should be outlawed.) Journalists should not be engaging in partisan commentary, nor should they actively engage in culture wars on social media in a desperate chance to get noticed and have a job. Seeking exposure in this way often involves maximizing virality and outrage. This undermines the integrity and reliability of journalism. We all know you are trying to get attention on the internet. I honestly think the New York Times and all modern news IS fake news. You just want my eyeballs and to control my opinions, I can't trust a word you say.
It's simple. Do the news. Not commentary or social media. Just the news. If you want to vent about politics, do it over a beer with a friend.
And stop using social media. Geez.
5
Charlie.. Well there was a post on infowars that Sonmez was a democrat. And she did not shed one single tear for Bryant. This is just as important as learning about accusations that are 16 years old when someone dies in a tragic accident. What is she trying to hide? She should have revealed her bias. Her credibility with me is gone.
2
I see what she wrote as being about her personal experience with her timing a complete lack of empathy for his wife and children She cannot just ignore policy of a newspaper that employs her
3
So a guy dies tragically and some person calls attention to something bad he might or might not have done in the past. Oh, and his daughter died, too. His daughter.
Think about your daughter dying. I can't even bring myself to do it.
So people get angry at the vicious idiot who called attention to the man's flaws.
I don't blame them. The man might be a bad man--I have no idea. But the reporter is certainly vicious.
3
Sonmez did the right thing by revealing the usernames of those who threatened her, but she really could have waited a few weeks before slagging Bryant off. That was tacky and tasteless. Not worthy of doxing or death threats from fans (derived from "fanatics", after-all), but tacky and tasteless.
1
@PeteH Would you think it was the right thing if someone found them and harmed them or their families? Two wrongs don't make a right.
2
Cutting to the chase-
The higher-ups in newsrooms are usually old fogeys who entered the game when you still had to go find a newsstand to buy a newspaper, and most are still clueless when it comes to social media, or even some who suggest one write something that'll go viral, as though the journalist has control over what gets popular and what doesn't beyond the "celebrity cellulite!" angle.
The reporters, the ones who do the actual printing (such as it is) with the byline are the ones who get doxxed and death-threated, and they are the ones who grew up with online news and are far more tech-savvy.
It's grandpa wagging a finger at his length of his granddaughter's skirt in this case.
1
Are you suggesting that the world of journalism has not always been cut throat?
1
It's no secret that Twitter is a dumpster. You all know exactly what Twitter is. If you choose to use it, then understand you are taking the good and the bad with that.
On a note about Kobe- Ms. Sonmez knew what kind of reaction she'd be getting when she did it 3 hours after he died. If she wanted to have a meaningful discussion, she knew this was not the time.
6
It seems to me to be an inherent conflict of interest for a Washington Post paid journalist (who is paid to report facts) to have a moonlighting gig on twitter shouting opinions.
2
Tactless "journalist" lacking dignity, class no doubt fishing for lucrative settlement.
2
Ms. Sonmez's sin was not so much journalistic, as it was bad manners. Sunday morning, as the Kobe Bryant story was breaking, was not the time to dredge up his life's misdeeds. And it didn't matter if Sonmez was doing this under her personal Twitter account; as a member of the general public, she would be nothing without the brandishment of the New York Times as her aegis.
And as for the writer of this column, where has he been? The online world has been engaged in cultural fisticuffs since the appearance of the first comment thread. And it has gotten worse than a WWF smackdown-fest in the years since.
'They' long ago came for individuals, myself included. Ask anyone who's ever been mobbed for their contrary opinions on sites like NYTimes.com. It is then that you will see that trolls do not always come singularly, but travel in packs, protected by group-think and the minions that do their bidding, the comment moderators.
Even Times writers are not immune to attack (ever read a Ross Douthat comment thread?). But I guess the writer of today's column feels the sting when one dares step beyond the parameters of group-think, into the darker recesses of...individual-think. Yes, they'll especially come for you then.
Here, again, it all boils down to manners.
It's all about manners.
4
My takeaway...social media is dumb. Stop using it...boom...no more outrage and culture war.
2
I don’t want journalists to be combative, funny and omnipresent on Twitter. I just want them to write the news so I can find out what’s going on in the world. This seems so self-evident I feel a little ridiculous just having to say it.
The social media mob will come after you if you post that you like cherry pie. Why not apple pie??? Are you a commie? Why do journalists, or anyone else for that matter, waste their time with it?
1
What a whiny article. The author failed to mention the following: For starters, far from being a free speech advocate, Felicia Sonmez once tried to get two writers fired who wrote things about her that she didn't like. She was acting like a troll more than the people who found her tweet ghoulish -- let's not forget that Bryant's body wasn't even cold by the time of her post. The article she linked while she was on the clock at work wasn't a straight news article but an op-ed. Instead of apologizing over her ghoulish behavior, she claimed she got over 10,000 (!) death threats, yet her screenshots of the emails didn't show a single one. Then when her boss rightfully asked her why she was doing this, and then she received a paid suspension, she leaked that email to your paper. Here in the real world, those actions are fireable offenses. In the media world, she gets a puff piece like this article. Good grief.
7
Didn't Felicia Sonmez previously try to get feminist writers Emily Yoffe and Caitlin Flanagan cancelled?
3
It ain't about you.
2
This is one long winded apology for people like Don Lemon and his "panel" who call Republican voters rubes and idiots for 5 plus minutes and are subsequently fake apologetic when the RNC uses it and Hillary saying Trump voters are deplorables (and Buttigieg saying Trump voters are racists, and...., and...) to make a commercial making it clear just how far the mainstream media is from objective. And then Lemon says he was laughing at the joke but he doesn't demean Trump voters..... give it a rest Don Lemon you "objective" journalist. Just practice objective journalism and you won't have to worry.
2
If Ms. Sonmez had re-tweeted an article from Infowars that the Sandy Hook killings were faked, would that have been acceptable to the Post management?
No, tweeting someone else's article, one you didn't research and didn't investigate is the WORST possible offence a reporter could commit. You aren't reporting the news now, you're a conduit and a dupe backed by the good name of the WaPO.
She should actually have been fired and if the Post has no rules against retweeting non-reviewed and unvetted stories, they should.
3
How is what we think of as journalism in any served by Twitter? It is the kingdom for lazy, solipsistic pronouncements and point scoring. Tweets don’t help us understand anything, they never change anyone’s mind. It’s fast, ephemeral and meaningless. Journalists: please stop using this creature from hell.
1
There are deaths from accident and disease every day among those we think of as being “before their time.” That conception is of course both anti-nature and illogical. It is strictly sentimental and feeds into all our personal fears of mortality, a sense that may be uniquely human. Someone dies, even a close loved one, and we persevere - until it is our turn. Animal lovers who live a long life span experience this sadness repeatedly. The outpouring of grief when the victim is a famous celebrity is absurd, if understandable.
3
@Chuck Burton Many are mourning as much their youthful experiences and memories as they are the early death of a celebrity and father with his child.
1
The tactic favored by culture war trolls is called concern trolling. They pose as concerned individuals bringing issues to authorities, often as many concerned individuals, since anonymity provided by the web allows each troll to masquerade as a whole host of people, creating the illusion of mass outrage. Troll brigades can be as small as a handful or consist of scores, even hundreds of loosely affiliated people, but their ability to misrepresent their numbers means even a small group can have the same effect as hundreds if not thousands of angry people in the eyes of traditional media.
This tactic exploits the concern of people in authority. Concern for their organization's reputation, brand, and legal liability. The trolls leverage this concern by framing the actions of the targeted person (e.g. a journalist) as a risk to the organization. Thus, the heavy hand of management falls as a fist upon the target, censuring them on behalf of the trolls whilst thinking it was acting in self preservation.
Countering this requires moderating responses to reports with the realization that the internet can magnify the voices of small, niche groups to give them outsized presence. If trolls see that their reporting no longer results in corporate overreactions it will lose its power as a weapon.
The goal of the trolls is to sabotage discourse in spaces where they are unwelcome. Keeping the discourse going is how you defeat them.
2
Sonmez' ref. to the rape was rude and crude!!!
A guy and his daughter were tragically killed. TIMING is key when to bring up his BAD deeds. You dont talk about the dead negatively at a funeral do you?
Shame on you reporter for trying to be first to disparage the guy. Because you had nothing else to write about. Shame on you.
5
“…While few publications would say it, it’s all but required for young journalists to jump into the culture war online…
What historically-oblivious nonsense…
Virtually every big-city newspaper that’s not – yet – gone under, was established more than a hundred years ago…
Social media didn’t even exist, twenty years ago, and – little more than a decade ago – MySpace was bigger than either of Google or Facebook…
What’re you gonna tell us next, Charlie – before 2000, young journalists were all but required to hook up with sources at bars to get the next scoop???
And what makes for a really fireable tweet, anyway…
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html
Here’s how things are going down…
You all thought you were going to slip into comfortable careers as adjuncts to the smug elite who feel entitled to roles as wardens – for as many dumb and dependent wards you all can create through advocating for socialism and anarchy…
No wonder that you accuse anyone who wages war on Bolshevism of being a Nazi…
The irony, of course – Hitler was one of the most ardent socialists of his day…
https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2007/sep/17/greatinterviews1
Somehow, the NYT – and most of the rest of us – managed to survive Hitler’s onslaught and Goebbels’s social media barrage…
Though it wasn’t by impeaching him – it was by declaring war on him…
You and your paper have chosen your side, this time/war around…
2
"Virtually every big-city newspaper ... was established more than a hundred years ago…"
So your argument is that what worked 100 years ago is still perfectly adequate now.
That's laughably easy to rebut -- there were no computers 100 years ago, yet newspapers published stories. And telephones didn't have dials or buttons -- you called an operator at a switchboard.* And there were no airline companies. Etc.
If you want to rebut Warzel, read the rest of his paragraph.
* More precisely, early telephones were hard-wired point-to-point.
I hate Twitter. Everyone should just shut up.
3
I wonder what the NY Times would do in the same situation if the reporter worked for them?
Sorry.
Anyone on Twitter is no better than the thug in the White House with his 2 thumbs going all day rather than doing the job he was elected to do and has proven without doubt he can't do.
3
Civil Rights groups should be demanding Sonmez's firing. Beloved global figure but especially amongst U.S. based blacks just dead , tawdry reporting tactics normally appearing in racist rags such as Breitbart, the Daily Stormer shamefully reported by narcissist representing normally respectable establishment newspaper.
1
We should also ask what do you do when the newsroom itself is the troll?
4
Uh. Do you read the Times?
The trolls are in the room.
3
I'm ready to choke whomever out who comes after me. Any takers?
That idiot from the Post wasn't the only idiot taking a swipe at a guy who died far before his time and was still amongst the wreckage with his daughter when it was written, the USA Today also pinned an Op-Ed with a title conveying we shouldn't be quick to look past Kobe's imperfections. I didn't read the article because I truly didn't want to hear what that idiot had to say, but it's my sincere hope USA Today eviscerates him/her from the payroll as well. It shouldn't take much to be decent at a time like that, but when folks can't seem to manage that base level of human decency . . . their actions say a hell of a lot more about them as humans than it will ever say about the person they're attacking.
2
So besides the "Damn if you do/Damn if you don't" twitter culture described effecting journalism described here, when does a reporter get to think: "What important stories am I--and everyone one else missing?" "What is happening that's overlooked?" "What is seen but being misperceived?"
While I'm following and participating in social media, because that's what we do now (and/or are expected to), what emails or comments from readers about my last column am I overlooking, because keeping up with those is not required of me?
Are there new sources I should be cultivating, new angles, new places to look for stories?
1
(I'm a woman.) Bottom line, the boy's club is alive and well and celebrity cult rules. Kobe was an idol so he gets a full pass if he raped a woman (or who knows how many who haven't come forward). Just try to bring this subject out and you get death threats. And the top brass at the Post seemed to be as annoyed with that woman reporter as the trolls that have pestered her, truth be damned. Let's just sweep this thing under the carpet.
Talk about a macho culture.
Also, I also read in some outlet that Kobe was "a genius". Now come on. If someone can put a ball inside a hoop, does this make him a genius? We all know that many sports coaches at universities earn way more than tenured professors and scientists. What a distorted perspective.
6
@Alex It's sad when some people's twisted ideology deprives them of basic human decency.
I have young friends who work in media, and the pressures of trying to do solid journalism at the speed of social media is daunting. The key part of the article is the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t nature of the news business today.
And journalists rely on their social media presence to bolster their visibility and reach, even as it undermines the quality of media overall. Many of them are freelancers, cobbling together a career of podcasts and articles — social media is the self-promotion that keeps them employed.
1
Wrong time so soon after a death, wrong situation. No respect for the reporter. Support the action of the Post. Had to defame a man within a few hours of his tragic death over something apparently resolved almost 20 years earlier. Very bad form. Truly a clown article. Unfortunately with the Times, there is no way to directly convey opinion to the perpetrator of the article. Times hides their wussies.
I now wait the normal week or so to see if the Times can process a letter. What is comes down to is that the Times and these dear readers do not matter at all in the state of the world. Just talk on and watch. Upon your death you are simply fertilizer. Same as it EVER WAS.
2
There was a simple, old-school yardstick by which to gauge Ms. Sonmez' Tweet: TRUTH! If it's true, news-gathering organizations should NOT be in the business of trying to define or straddle the "appropriateness" chasm. Marty Baron was out of line when he tried to apply social norms to the truth. Stick to the facts -- which her Tweet did. And when you don't KNOW whether the "facts" are, indeed, true, say so upfront! Old-fashioned, wire-service-type truth-seeking is STILL de rigueur -- even now!
1
Sounds like the higher ups at the Washington Post want their reporters to all jump into the internet pool but to not get wet.
1
It is amusing that media-types are so outraged by this one example of a reporter suffering personal consequences for a tweet that rubbed some the wrong way. Every day, it seems, the media runs with stories about ordinary people who slip up and say or do something insensitive, causing those individuals to become national "news." Those folks then lose their jobs, and the media moves on. Unless the mob hits one of their own - then they rally to protect.
4
@Citizen Very well said! Agree 100%!
Yes to all of this. I hope the WaPo is listening, but I also hope the NYTimes is listening. When journalists remember the arc of a story and can point back to to earlier pieces that give context and color to a current story they are *doing* their jobs. They make their employers look *better* -- because it looks like the organization hires smart people with a grasp of the sweep of history.
3
The initial response to this from the Washington Post makes me think there was already a problematic relationship between employer and employee.
That said, I can't help but think that the issue was that the reporter publicly posted the name of a man who sent her an email in which he called her the "c" word. As a reporter with a blue checkmark on Twitter, she has more means than most of us to report and quickly get attention for an abusive, threatening email. We want to trust journalists to not get into the weeds with their trolls. Report them, ignore them, block them, write a story about it. Public fights, no. The newspaper - don't announce to the world a private matter with an employee and take your employee's security seriously.
The issues between the employer and the employee now seems to be between all newspapers and their journalists. Work it out. Get a union, change your policies. Leave us out of it.
1
Twitter clearly has zero interest in fixing their harassment problems. They make money from your engagement, and the best way to keep you engaged is to keep you outraged. The trolls are a key part of their business model. Twitter used to be fun but has become a horrible place that is having a detrimental effect on its users mental health and on the functioning of society. I implore people to quit Twitter for a week - you'll feel much happier and less stressed. Then delete your account entirely and never look back.
2
I deliberately stay off social media, with the exception of NYT On-line and receiving e-mails from many of its Opinions contributors. The news provided by the Times provides facts that inform me of the conditions of our nation and world. The commentators challenge me to seek and contemplate other's opinions. Social media does neither of these things as it is almost always reactionary, often filled with hate rather than debate. When the president posts a hateful tweet and the Times includes it verbatim in an article, I skip the tweet and look instead for the analyses of its effect. Politicians and the Press are making a devil's compromise to use social media to reach the masses while attempting to inform the rest of us through more conventional means. My three sons and I are computer, network, and the associated security experts. They and their voting age children do not use social media. We all vote in every election. It's questionable how many on social media vote. My two stepsons and stepdaughter are very vocal about politics on-line but none of them have ever voted in primaries or elections to-date. Maybe they will this time. They all despise Trump. This all raises the question, "How much bang for the buck is gained by reporters on-line?"
4
Can we stop with the nonsense that Twitter isn't real life? I don't have Twitter or any social media but I can't recall a day in the past few years where something said on Twitter didn't effect my day. Be it the Tweeter in Chief bloviating about something, or some tweet that sets of a firestorm because culture wars. It is real life. And it is utterly exhausting.
2
@Lauren That's because what amounts for news these days is nothing more than reading tweets to us. At least in the D/FW market, that's all the local TV stations do -- naturally, Trump's tweets get the most mention but the general craziness does to. And weird so-called "viral" stuff. Like another commenter said, it's all about the $$
1
The fact that so many social media users feel free to make terroristic threats exposes the failure of media companies and government regulators to adequately police overtly antisocial behavior. Social media is a digital jungle and needs a heavy dose of reform before it destroys our civilization.
@Dawglover But they don't want to police! They say they would be infringing on our 1st Amendment rights. And that they're not media companies, but just the techie platform that others use. (And our legislators agree, clearly, because where are the laws in place to forbid the online version of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater?) it's sad, just sad.
Blurring the line between reporting, opinion and editorial, especially in the uncontrolled environment of social media, is one of the biggest reasons trust in media is so low. The firewall is gone, so who is objectively reporting facts? No one. So not only can you not tell fact from opinion, the writer/ editor creates a situation where the *reader* decides what is fact and what is opinion. One reader will see some facts as opinion and another reader will see those same opinions as facts. It's a free-for-all, and it's killing mainstream media, social discourse, and political accountability.
3
The subhead line says it all: Newsrooms aren’t ready. Seems like if newsrooms expect their reporters to tweet (which in itself probably means maintaining 24/7 awareness and responsiveness,) they would provide 24/7 editorial backup.
No single person has the judgement to never, ever tweet something “insensitive” - especially if they’re expected to represent or speak for an identity community (apparently a journalist has to have their own brand in addition to promoting the paper’s brand.) And then what happens if the raw story involves other communities?
What disturbs me the most is the seething coldness and hostility that Warzel’s describes as part of the larger story: the coldness of an employer off-handedly disciplining a well-intentioned employee; the unreasonable expectations on journalists; the hostility of people on social media attacking a (female) journalist; the accusations of “poor judgement!” and “tactless!” mentioned in some of the comments. Everyone’s got an excuse for abandoning forbearance and wallowing in positive feedback loops of outrage. There is enough systemic exploitation and inhumanity in the world; we can do without the ad-hominem attacks and judgements.
1
when political correctness finally overwhelms
serious journalism( Trump not withstanding,)
this country will be finished.
2
@Frank EXACTLY!!
I think the answer is obvious - avoid twitter, avoid face book, share photos online for friends, and keep everything else to yourself.
1
After reading this, I would imagine journalism is a profession that results in plenty of burn out.
Always having to be "on," always having to be in the fray, it must get very tiresome, if not worrisome as well.
1
In this era of social media giving us "news," it's giving us mostly lies. The misinformation from these sources seems to be astronomically more common than true information. So, you won't see me taking as fact anything I see on social media, and that includes comments sections like this one in genuine newspaper articles. I try to go to sources full of genuine reporters who work for their stories, not just rehashes of garbage found on the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Breitbart, etc. (Breitbart once sent out into the internet the "fact" that Antifa people were coming to urinate on Confederate graves at Gettysburg. The only Confederate graves at Gettysburg are about four or five, unmarked, soldiers buried there by accident. No one could urinate on them if they wanted to because you can't find them, and Antifa people were not coming to Gettysburg either. Everyone in Gettysburg, including the local newspaper, was like "Huh?")
The Washington Post's request to "show restraint" appears to be an instruction to reporters not to interfere in the canonization of dead celebrities, as well as an instruction to women on the staff not to be "troublemakers". I very much hope that some heavy duty rethinking will go on there.
1
Whoa, Nelly. The tweeter-in-chief can tweet lies, insults, thinly veiled threats, and comments that put other people at risk with impunity. But a journals tweets the truth about a celebrity’s complex life and nearly loses her job as a result, in addition to fearing for her life. Let’s do have a discussion about double standards.
2
Great and insightful piece. Necessary.
“Ms. Sonmez then posted a selection of the threats she received, without obscuring the names of the people who had sent her hate mail.”
I think this is great. From the get-go of the internet anonymity should not have been allowed. Yes, people would write less, but if you aren’t willing to put your name on it then maybe you shouldn’t say it.
If anyone sends/posts hateful or threatening words, then their name should be on it. Much like DNA testing finding murderers who got away with crime, putting the name out there will reduce these kinds of rants that the recipient should not have to deal with. Like what was done to the suffering Sandy Hook parents.
2
Mr. Bryant’s “complicated legacy” was referenced while his body was still warm. Great way to grab attention but in rather poor taste.
2
This is a great article providing great analysis. There is meat on these bones.
Currently, as far as credibility goes, the serious impartial news function is broken. In the scramble for relevance, clicks and ad revenue senior media executives have found themselves at sea in a modern media environment whose necessary speed of movement as almost erased the time honored sober second thought editorial function that provided establishment media with their expertise. These days even if you work for the NYT or WaPo when it comes to social media. You are out their on your own. And you are expected to work almost 24 hours a day maintaining your profitable to your employer social profile for no extra money. Welcome to the modern world of journalism, more exposure, more risk, less money, less security, less support (intellectual, editorial and moral). They want you to kibitz on line like a thirteen year old one minute then comment with objective gravitas the next. Not gonna happen. Not possible. Hence the credibility and trust meltdown that is our modern profit and attentiion driven information environment. God help us all!
2
I do not understand, for the life of me, why any sensible person uses Twitter any more, or cares what it says.
If you don't look at social media, what happens on it will not bother you.
She did nothing wrong---all the deceased's significant history should appear in an obituary for the readers' information.
Appears that upper management were biased to portray only one side of Bryant. What else are they squashing when it comes to see the whole picture?
1
Sonmez was heartless, reckless and in professional in tweeting what she did when she did. She was certainly guilty of very poor judgement. However, she made a valid point, and she mirrored my thinking at the time. I was sickened by the way everyone spoke of Bryant as if he were a saint. I even heard a reporter call him “one of the most important people in the world.” Really? A basketball player? Worse, the other passengers who lost their lives — equally valued humans with fami,it’s who mourned them — were repeatedly dismissed as, “and others.”
Sonmez posted the truth. She did it at the wrong time and in the rind way, but she was engaging in neither libel nor slander. I read the story she linked to. It was well reported.
1
Funny thing. I wrote a short story about characters who resemble Trump and his daughter, Tiffany and a conversation that they have. It’s inspired by something Einstein said. It’s just for entertainment but I finished it months ago but worry about sending it out into the ether because of possible blowback.
How many other people, in many different ways, won’t speak up because they fear being doxxed or attacked?
"... characters who resemble Trump and his daughter, Tiffany ..."
What do you mean by "resemble". Do you use the same names? Do you describe a President and his daughter? Etc.
"It’s inspired by something Einstein said."
What was that?
Sports figures don’t shape or inspire my daily living, thinking or interactions with others.
The young woman Kobe Bryant assaulted ( her blood was on his clothing) was hounded out of her home and received hundreds of death threats from St. Kobe’s followers.
People need to know.
1
Much speaking.
Sigmund Freud, on wiki under 'De mortuis nil nisi bonum'
'We assume a special attitude towards the dead, something almost like admiration for one who has accomplished a very difficult feat. We suspend criticism of him, overlooking whatever wrongs he may have done, and issue the command, De mortuis nil nisi bene: we act as if we were justified in singing his praises at the funeral oration, and inscribe only what is to his advantage on the tombstone. This consideration for the dead, which he really no longer needs, is more important to us than the truth, and, to most of us, certainly, it is more important than consideration for the living.'
2
I'd really like to see no online presence at all by journalists, or let them use a pseudonym. I follow a lot of journos on twitter, half link to interesting stories, some are young entitled privileged Ivy League graduates paid by the word who interact with people just like themselves and speak in Woke. They complain about what they are paid and live off their spouses or parents. They take it upon themselves to be the arbiter of what is or isn't acceptable, and lots of luck if like Kobe someone is accused of anything containing the word gender. Substantiated, convicted, or not. I see this instance as two wrongs. Once to accuse someone of rape that was never convicted and to do it on the day he died in full view of his wife and kids, the other wrong is the online threats and harassment of the reporter. When and how to impose decency online.
1
It's too bad Kobe got killed. Roughly 7,000 Americans die each day. Many of them were exemplary peeps who were kind to others and/or made great contributions to our society. I cannot understand this national grief at the death of a guy who got fabulously rich and globally famous for bouncing a ball.
4
Trolls move on when they feel they’ve done their damage. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the Post’s reaction was a calculated effort to diffuse the situation and protect their writer by “punishing” her.
2
Leaving aside the papers reactions to Ms. Sonmez re posting of the earlier reporting on the allegations against Kobe- aside from that question there is this one: At that time why would anyone be so callous as to bring that up?
Was that really the time for that? One human to another and all.
I mean really?
2
Please. This particular episode can be filed be filed under “Get a Clue, Tone Deaf Reporter.” She has every right to tweet and face the obvious consequences, and her management has every right to be furious. As for the idea that “disinformation” began with Trump, add a second eye roll.
3
"Obviously journalists shouldn't undermine their colleagues." Right, because nobody here did this to Bret Stephens a few weeks ago. The urge to generate clickbait and outrage at his expense was too strong. I'm glad the editorial board let the article stand with revisions. I'm glad the NY Times is committed to having the best writers--not placating the masses.
1
Journalism is under assault for bias and inaccuracy. The rush to post on social media creates vulnerabilities that threatens to worsen the situation. First is the absence of confirmation which editors often insist upon. Second, and more insidious, is the ease with which bad actors can plant falsehoods for the purpose of undermining a specific journalist or journalism in general.
2
It is more a story of social media than culture wars and it's social media that is coming for each of us some day.
Social media has become a big part of our era. The NYT has joined at times with social media when it served its purposes, even creating new positions that focus on social media sources and analysis.
Time's up to understand that social media is very much like mob rule. Those who feel comfortable that the mob is on their side will often be surprised when it turns on them.
1
There was no doubt that any news driven obituary of Kobe Bryant was going to include Colorado; not surprising news to those of knew of him. The Post writer suffered from "Tweet before thinking", a malady that a lot of people suffer from. Tweeting a link isn't journalism/reporting. And no, his incident shouldn't be minimized, but compared to the shock of his death it was old news. The matter was poorly handled by both the "writer" and management. By now it has been internally emailed and memoed at the Post on a large scale, probably accompanied by numerous re-education meetings.
3
The NYT comments are a great place for public opinion and interesting to read. I enjoy adding my thoughts. But if I felt it would be harmful to me or my family I would stop posting. All the twittering on line is only that - TWITTER.
I thought "culture war" was a code word for abortion. What does it have to do with Kobe Bryant?
A famous actress posting on Facebook stated that Bryant was a "rapist", without adding that the accusation was not tried in court. Was the reporter that reckless? What was the exact charge against her?
I do not buy the “Too Soon” argument; the over-the-top pushback is just another example of “Stan”ism, rabid supporters run amok and bully/cancel culture.
The reaction of the Post Editor (Marty Baron) was profoundly WRONG. This kind of “round the wagons” around the Institution is what Mr. Baron fought when he and The Boston Globe were doing groundbreaking work that the Boston Diocese would rather have seen swept under the rug.
I fully understand fan grieving and how much one’s popular idols enrich our lives and how we feel protective of them.
SHAME on the WaPo for not supporting their young journalist and for not offering an straight-forward apology. Newspapers routinely pillory public officials for weasel words, spinning, shading, half-truths, and omissions. I have read the Post for decades and can not recall a more shameful moment.
1
@LMT If she had actually done any reporting, we could sympathize, but she leveraged the credibility of the WaPO to link to a story she had no way of confirming.
Bad reporting.
I thought the reason she was suspended was posting a screenshot of a work email on twitter (violating many rules, along with good sense), not the initial tweet.
Also, the "culture war" did not come to the WaPo newsroom.
Felicia Sonmez and her boss, Marty Baron, are on exactly the same side -- the left side -- of the political spectrum. The issue was simply that Baron thought it was in bad taste for the reporter -- on the day Bryant's death was reported -- to tweet a link to an old story about an even older sexual harassment case, but Sonmez thought it was something that needed to be done.
1
No one is safe from the group-thinking, holier-than-thou, culture watchdog hoards--no author (as we've seen with American Dirt), no artist, no journalist, no anyone. Especially on Twitter, there is no nuance, little original thought, much self-congratulation. Thank God for real conversations with thinking people.
1
It pretty darn ironic that Marty Baron sought to silence one of his writers due to a mob-like mentality when The Washington Post emblazons its digital and physical newspapers with these words: Democracy Dies in Darkness.
1
Couldn’t she have waited a few days, and why post just this one particular part of his past and not include all the amazing things he did in his short life? While retaliatory threats etc.. are unacceptable, let’s not make this about journalists as victims— this is not confusing. Her original decision to post that tweet at that particular time was in very poor taste.
1
“traditional press gatekeeping”
People are aware, now more than ever, that the traditional press also has political leanings which influence their articles, which means, the people now are not only forced to watch out for internet freaks pulling non-facts out of thin air but traditional press outlets as well bending data to meet pre-determined outcomes.
1
The culture wars permeate every aspect of "news" reporting. The very nature of what was once "news reporting" has morphed into advocacy pieces that comport to the agendas of the editors.
The NYT editors have their agendas on race, best expressed in their polemic the "1619 project." The Murdoch editors have their agendas rooted in undermining governance of our country.
The whole business model seems predicated on "click bait" headlines and teasers to attract subscribers.
Its a cacophony of noise within which some good journalism occasionally gets done. Woe is us.
2
So much of this is just Twitter's distortions. From its first days, it was clear that it was going to be a disaster for peoples' brains and relationships. The platform was literally intended to be vapid and mercurial—to play on the human brain's worst habits for a paycheck. Twitter never intended to provide any value to society whatsoever, and they haven't. All these new conversations and awarenesses haven't made our lives any better. In fact, Twitter is making them worse, even for people who don't use it. It's almost being forced on us. It's inane entertainment at best and cynical manipulation at worst.
So you can get a witty quip from your favorite science writer every day. Is that worth the harassment, hatred, violence, incivility, and the incessant, desperate push to dumb everything down so nobody has to read or think anymore?
This article wouldn't exist without the unhealthy importance people place on Twitter.
1
Good for the post. Finally a modicum of decency.
Re-running old news at a time when people are dealing with the shock, horrors and the general sadness of the moment when people are looking for current relevant news is classless, crass and unnecessary.
Talk about a lack of sympathy, judgement and awareness. It is disgusting.
She was trying to use this tragedy to bolster her name. An opportunist and a person with poor character.
What did she hope to gain here?
A free press must also be humane.
Wait a few weeks if you really need or want to trample the dead.
2
There is a middle ground here. The rape allegations are an important part of his history and should not be omitted. They also could be referred to a day or two later and not when Bryants body was still laying in the grass.
1
What other information has the Washington Post suppressed in other news events, because it was deemed politically incorrect? When we read news in the Washington Post, we have to wonder, "what are they hiding?"
1
You are seeing the world of Social Media at its worst. If people would ignore Facebook, Twitter, SnapChat, etc, they would have more time and less problems. Where did the Russians attack our elections; Facebook? Some things need to be ignored much like the Antifa and the Right Wing nut fringe need to be ignored, or arrested, as they bring hyper hate to their activities. When you go to a rally and everyone has helmets and ball bats, or worse, it isn't going to be a love-in. People can no longer agree to disagree as now it is agree or die. I think the anonymous nature of the internet has added a lot of vitriol to our national conversations. Most of these people are anonymous cowards. Ms.Sonmez did the right thing to expose this hatred. I hope she is OK going forward.
1
The only way to win the War is not to play the game.
It is time that Journalists and News Organization Management drop Facebook and Twitter and get back to spending their time researching and writing the news. Spend the rest of your time playing with your kids and walking with your Grandparents.
1
Setting aside the scary response from the Twitter-verse, what Ms. Sonmez's tweet clearly implied was: "He was accused of rape 17 years ago, he deserved to die."
Let that sink in for a moment. A father died with his daughter and other families on the way to a basketball tournament for young girls. Please don't pretend a link to a new story isn't a commentary in this case.
The timing of the tweet was in poor taste and when I read about the suspension I thought: good. People need to restrain themselves a bit, even journalists.
3
Reporters should not Tweet.
There are a lot of Twits on Twitter
and Reporters need not add to that banality.
Ms. Sonmez should have had the common decency
to not mention that accusation so soon after Mr. Bryant died.
If she wants to write a detailed and in depth story about
what may or may not have happened in that Hotel Room
she could have done so for the Washington Post or
sent it to a different publication.
That would have been far more fair and just and
proper after the sudden death of one of the people involved.
After all if she wants to support the prosecution of those who
have taken advantage of women, she can scour the news feed and investigate each case as she see fit.
2
It's tacky to dredge up sordid details of a deceased person's life even if she had the legal right to do it. Social media isn't very social sometimes.
It’s been a long time since Twitter added any positive value to our society. Time to shut it down.
That the Post suspended this woman even briefly is part of the deep chill that makes too many of us weigh the pros and cons of speaking freely, w a very real sense of danger looming in the background. I've had my own encounters with the trolls as an academic, and it's v scary.
So...what is the point of free speech if speaking freely threatens our livelihoods, even our lives? If organizations cave to the trolls?
And it's not just happening in journalism, but in academia, in government, and in business too...
This is how democracies die...and quickly...
1
I am devastated by the deaths of all who died with Kobe Bryant. The tenor and the soul of L.A., my city, are deeply stunned by this tragic loss that effects the deceased's families and friends. Immeasurable numbers globally were intersected by this gut wrenching incident.
I am not objective about this issue: Mentioned within hours of his death the singular less than stellar moment – not a pattern of conduct -- in his life. Really!
I wish he had skipped that part of maturation so that now his wife and family including his parents would not have to be reminded again: He was human; had flaws like all of us. I wondered why it had to be mentioned in first hours after his death.
Flaws and all, few can argue that Kobe stood heads and shoulders above most men in the honorable and noble way he faced life even missteps in Colorado. It's a fact! And, I can say if he were white, it might have been referenced even in these times on the 3rd or 4th day of coverage. Maybe.
But notwithstanding the double standard by race, there is the fact of the double standards of income, career, popularity and gender that also exist here -- standards not yet solidified.
The journalist repeated what is known in the historical record. As a historical writer and researcher, I cannot encourage errors and omissions to conveniently revise history to protect the innocent and the young. By the same token, I find this reporter's conduct crass and crude. Did you really have to go there when and how you did?
1
Everyone understands that reporters have their own set of opinions. What some journalists don't understand is that in today's day and age we desperately want information presented in an unbiased fashion. When reporters go online and churn out opinions it undermines their objectivity and value in our minds.
This fiasco had to do with one thing above all: media men muzzling asssult victims. It is shameful, it is horrifying, it is revolting and it is the norm.
1
Being a reporter, Felicia Sonmez felt the need to say something about the death of Kobe Bryant and his 13-yr old daughter, Gianna along with seven others in a helicopter crash.
What she chose to say, or Tweet, was a story from the early aughts about an accusation of rape levied against Kobe Bryant. The charges were dropped and a civil case was settled out of court.
Did Sonmez have the right to post that story on Twitter? Of course she did; but that is not the issue to me.
I understand a big story can bring out the worst in some people, causing them to jump into the conversation whether they have something worthwhile to add or not.
Sonmez's thoughtless Tweet added nothing new to the conversation and appeared to be another example of the popular, finger pointing 'but,what-about-this?' trend on social media.
I don't expect every reporter to weep over the death of Kobe Bryant, but I do expect basic human sensibilities, decency, respect for the pain and grief of a wife and mother, of siblings left behind.
Ms. Sonmez and many other reporters today, might consider taking a moment before they toss things out into the digital world.
Of what value is their post? Does it contribute anything to the story, add depth or nuance? Or does dredging up old scandals at a time of death and a family's loss simply accomplish that one shining goal - keeping their own name in the news?
132
@Nancy Northcutt
The article outlines Ms. Sonmez's reasoning for her tweets, that survivors of rape and sexual assault like herself be heard even (or especially) in the deification of their assailants. You are right to point to the need to consider the pain and grief of his family, while Ms. Sonmez felt it was also important to not forget the voices of his alleged victims. One can disagree with Ms. Sonmez's judgement or assessment, but I don't think it is as easy an answer as you suggest, or so easily dismiss-able as only a self guided attempt to "keep [her] own name in the news."
20
@Tarek But. She didn't say that on her tweet. She just posted a link to the story with a provocative headline and gave no context to why she was posting it. Hindsight.
11
@Tarek She is not alone as a survivor of sexual assault. We are legion. But, a child is about to be buried alongside her father. Let the family mourn in peace. This is not the time.
22
This problem would go away if reporters simply weren't allowed to post on social media with the identification of their news organizations without editorial approval.
After all, their content is not allowed on their OWN company's website without editorial approval. Nor are they normally allowed to publish on another company's website (e.g. a WaPo reporter on NYT.com) without approval.
In an effort to attract eyeballs, and to show they'rehip with the digital age, news organizations actually encourage reporters to tweet about their stories.
But this is not journalism, it is self-promotion, or as in Ms. Sonmez's care, self-promotion along with political activism.
Promotion should be left to the newspaper's publicity department, and political activism should be under the reporter's own name -- not including which newspaper they work for,.
2
A basketball player, that’s all he was. He didn’t bring world peace or make an exciting scientific discovery. He played a game very well. So why the inordinate adulation? I am sad that his daughter was killed, it is heartbreaking to see a parent outlive her daughter.
As for Twitter, it will be a constant source of social upheaval because by its very nature it allows people to speak before thinking. My dad used to say, “Put your mind in gear before you put your mouth in motion.”
1
“President John F. Kennedy, a known womanizer, was shot and killed today in Dallas.”
“Reverend Martin Luther King, suspected by the F.B.I. of Communist sympathies and known for marital infidelities, was assassinated today.”
“President Abraham Lincoln, thought to have sacrificed numerous troops during the Civil War to establish his agenda, was...”
You get the idea.
Should a person who dies tragically be looked at fully, warts and all? Absolutely. Is the crime Kobe Bryant was accused (but not convicted) of a heinous one? Clearly. Should a superstar/athlete/entertainer be immunized from scrutiny due to his fame? Not to my way of thinking.
Should an alleged crime be the lead? Personally, I don’t think so. Is this really a larger societal issue of trolling? Well, there’s a reason I’m not on Facebook or Twitter-no one should be abused on the InterWebs for tweeting, retweeting or anything else, but I don’t agree that the tweet in question should have been the first comment about the accidental death of a parent and his child.
140
@LJN Thanks for the excellent comment. I agree that the tragic death of this spectacular athlete was not the best time to bring up the old sex scandal. On the other hand, the fact that great athletes or political leaders are often able to get the charges dropped or overlooked (when less popular defendants are more likely to be severely punished and permanently disgraced) is still a serious problem.
20
@LJN So, Kobe is heinous despite the fact charges were dropped and the issue was settled by the parties involved. Because our outrage is more than the law or the parties involved?
10
Your Lincoln example is preposterous.
And while Kobe Bryant was undeniably a great basketball player and entertainer, he was not a moral and political leader like King and Lincoln.
12
This incident has nothing to do with "the culture war" or trolls. It's a matter of judgement and basic human decency.
Ms. Sonmez's tweet came just hours after Kobe had died along with his teenage daughter in a loss that was devastating to hundreds of thousands of people. There would have been plenty of time to re-litigate his complicated legacy in the days and weeks to come. It was tasteless and cruel for Ms. Sonmez to publish her tweet so soon after their deaths instead of pausing to allow the somberness of the moment and the magnitude of the loss to subside a little.
She was suspended for dancing on graves. The Washington Post lost the high ground by hiding behind bureaucratic nonsense about "policy" and then cravenly backing down.
7
@JE
"We owe respect to the living. To the dead we owe only the truth"
At least one major driver of degradation by social media stems from anonymity. Whether driven by personal conviction or just trying to stir things up, we say things online under fake names that we would never say in public, and especially around people who know us.
Talk is cheap, especially when there are no repercussions. The more that our total media feed, including from institutions that are still aiming for some professional ethics, is based on the junk level of social media, the worse it will get--and the more instances of mob overload we will see.
ps. I encourage more commenters to use their real names, and the NY Times to set that as policy.
4
Important article, the question remains -why are newsroom executives so out of touch in that they don't have the back of their reporters, but cave to the cultural warriors; it does seem to be a movement of the people, powered by social media tools like Twitter. I guess we'll be in trouble when the Millennials rule the industry, or at least it will be interesting to see what becomes of it.
2
Interesting article . I am sorry that the writer received death threats did she not realize what the reactions were going to be? What was her motivation? to get noticed to get her fifteen minutes in the spotlight? their is a time and place for everything,
Nine people died if you have been living in a cave for 20 years you couldn't as a human being not realized the emotional impact that Kobe's passing would have on the entire world.
We all have flaws and at the immediate time of our deaths no one wants to expose flaws to hurt the remaining survivors, who are desperately just trying to hold on to get thru another hour, living moment by moment. Anyone which is everyone who has lost someone so precious in their lives are dealing with an emotional grief that is all consuming.
Their is a connection between social media, platforms it is called humanity if we are so consumed with being first then you have to understand how the social media relationship works.
Processing death is difficult we know we are never ready for it . We know that the joy of our lives is not going to be walking in the door but on an emotional level we still need time to process that tomorrow becomes forever your little girl, your husband your child's friends, parents are not going to answer the phone when you call.
Being number one doesn't matter to grieving people don't come back from the dead, stories that could have waited 24 hours should of done so
2
Nearly everybody is falling over each other to praise The Departed.
Not me.
He was a privileged, super wealthy man, who felt so superior to everyone else that he would ride in a million dollar helicopter, spewing pollution, soaring above the peons stuck in traffic, above the poor and the homeless.
He was so insulated by his wealth and privilege that he could get away with behavior that would land the rest of us in jail.
As the saying goes: "One down ... "
4
WaPo leadership has more work to do to fix their blundering decision to suspend the reporter. They made the wrong move and they have yet to properly address it. Removing the suspension was correct. A real mea culpa and apology is due.
4
@Margaret
Amen.
For me, a tweet is still just something a bird says. I see no reason not to keep it that way.
12
I think the reporter was wrong to bring up the sexual assault case? What purpose did it serve? It wasn’t new “news,” and it had no bearing on the tragic accident in which nine people died. So what was the point? Creating controversy for the sake of controversy simply adds to the anger and distrust of journalists. The writer seems to be arguing that every young reporter needs to take advantage of any opportunity to be noticed on social media. If that is the purpose of journalism today, then we are in far worse shape than I thought. Common decency alone should have indicated that there was no reason to bring up an old case settled years ago. It’s like asking the widow or relatives at a funeral how they felt about the deceased’s past sexual affairs?
8
"What purpose did it serve?"
The Post reporter explains that in the linked piece by the Post's media critic.
The problem is that the Post reporter was not reporting, but editorializing about a current event. Reporters should never editorialize.
2
@BG There was nothing "wrong" with bringing it up. She's a journalist. It was a big story and a part of his life. That some people found it tasteless or poor timing is life. Half agree, half disagree.
Kobe Bryant apologised to his teenaged accuser and came as close to conceding the assault as he could without convicting himself. He also settled monetarily.
Kobe Bryant also did many wonderful things with his money and his fame, supporting young athletes, and was by all accounts a loving parent.
Many people regard him, above all, as a basketball star. Many others do not care about sports entertainment, and find sexual assault the more compelling issue raised by his life.
For the first group it is offensive to mention the sexual assault case, in light of the tragedy that has befallen him. For the second group, sexual assault is also a tragedy and it is offensive to ignore it.
The key difference, as I see it, is that when people who admire his basketball talent become offended because he was accused of rape, they can take comfort in public sympathy.
When people who are troubled by the sexual assault charges more than they are impressed by his sports talent speak up, they get pages of terrifying, violent death threats.
It is as if talking about sexual assault is more offensive to us than sexual assault itself.
Whatever we think about Kobe Bryant, at a minimum, let's look at those death threats, and the professional sanction this reporter received for merely bring up sexual assault, and stop asking women on the stand in court why they didn't report sooner...
393
@AAC To me it seemed like most people had issue with the timing. Why didn't she tween the article the day before or the day after. The man's body wasn't even cold; his wife lost a husband and a daughter and her first reaction is to malign his name. It's simply tactless and I can see why wapo felt it reflected poorly on them.
23
@Rob: Many of us don't follow sports. When I first heard of his death, the first thing that popped into my mind was, 'wasn't he that basketball star who assaulted some poor girl about a decade ago.' I had no idea what team he played for, or what his professional achievements were. But I remembered the assault immediately. So it didn't surprise me when someone else mentioned it right away, because for some people, it was literally the first thing that he is associated with. Not everyone cares about sports, but some of us care about women who are sexual assault victims.
65
@AAC
"Kobe Bryant apologised to his teenaged accuser and came as close to conceding the assault as he could without convicting himself. He also settled monetarily. "
Doesn't that amount to a confession, morally speaking if not in the eyes of the law?
21
Pogo: We have met the enemy, and he is us.
I guess that's okay in this world of endless informative consumption, digits inhaled like air, to be exhaled within seconds for the next gulp of twitter, instagram, facebook, whatever. But it smacks as well beyond "1984," and few seem to grasp that -- you can't see the forest for the trees. Yes, I know, an obsolete cliche. And I'm too old to be "Okay Boomered."
Yes, she should have postponed her anguish 96 hours -- family, friends, and acolytes deserve a change for shock and grief -- it showed bad taste and the Post's higher-ups showed worse.
That said, I'm so thankful that twenty-twenty vision via articles in Newsweek, Time, and The Week gave me cause, twenty years ago, to avoid Facebook, and later Twitter and all the rest. There is life, learning, peace and contentment, beyond this endless frenzy. Believe it.
Walt Kelly's "Pogo" was cut-to-the-chase as a post-war observation platform of the descent of America in the nineteen fifties. I was too young to understand it, but its highbrow grassroots wisdom somehow captivated me even then, amongst Davy Crockett, Yankees baseball, and the X-15. As "Doonesbury" personified the sixties/seventies, a return to "Pogo" might have more of an effect than thoughtful articles like this -- cartoon power is huge and paints an indelible picture.
From "All The News That's Fit To Print," to "All The News That Fits In Print." We've created a monster with an endless appetite.
4
I'm so sad to read that reporters are now required to post on Twitter. Why can't they be allowed to just do their jobs. No wonder major news organizations miss so much actual news. I have to read academic blogs, international magazines and attend lectures by experts to find out what is really going on. Our "journalists" apparently are spending their time tweeting to their fans like a C list celebrity.
9
@Anne Be sad that they are required to post on Twitter because we aren't supporting newspapers as we should. Newspapers are closing left and right or being purchased by propaganda machines.
Social media is just the latest rendition of the rumor mill. With its technology and anonymity, social media just goes faster, farther, and meaner.
The most ridiculous thing I read online, about Kobe Bryant’s death, was in an actual NYT article (an article... not a blog... not a Tweet). The writer stated, in the article’s intro/summary, that people would remember where they were, when they heard the news of Bryant’s death, just like older people remember where they were when JFK was assassinated.
Really? Seriously? So absurd, I didn’t finish the article.
I not only remember exactly where I was when I heard about JFK’s assassination; I also remember the exact first words exchanged between myself and a classmate (I was 12 years old).
I don’t have the same clear, specific memories about the assassinations of MLK or RFK. Nor do I remember where I was and what I said when Elvis Presley died, but I vividly remember the news covering the first candlelight vigil. Graceland still has an annual candlelight vigil for Elvis... well-attended since 1977. There are many other influential people for which I have even vaguer memories.
I have visited the Lorraine Motel museum and Graceland in Memphis — twice. I’ve visited parts of California’s Central Valley and the Mississippi Delta that were on RFK’s poverty your. John F Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Robert F Kennedy, and Elvis Presley are historical and cultural icons.
Kobe Bryant is not in their league.
9
@Donna. I think you are missing the point. His biggest fans WILL remember. Sports is not my passion, but I most definitely remember where and when I learned of musician Chris Cornell’s passing. And I can fully understand vicarious grief that may seem strange to non-fans. The sadness I felt at the loss of Cornell lasted much longer than I would have predicted. Bryant’s fans were in tears. The grief of his immediate family, friends, former teammates and opposing players is so much more. It was harrowing to see the gentle giant Shaq reduced to sobs.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls. And ask not which bell peals the loudest.
1
In choosing, at such a sensitive time, to tweet this link to the reporting of another journalist from 4 years ago Ms. Sonmez was not engaging in journalism: she was simply being provocative. She may not have been happy with the reaction she provoked but surely it should not have come as a surprise. Her employers recognized her actions as a provocation and not journalism, and in my opinion they acted appropriately in their roles as managers with responsibility for running an important news organization.
57
@JFB
Women like me--several of us, apparently, and men too--were grateful for Sonmez's reminder of actual history (brutal history that matters a lot, in fact) and a salient detail in a press- and fan- burnished life that was otherwise being airbrushed beyond recognition.
Some of us never did forget.
85
@JFB,
Aside from the fact that management ultimately does not agree with you, as they walked back their initial censure, a person’s death does not obliterate facts about their life.
There were overwhelming accolades published about Bryant, but they do not reflect the entirety of him, and in fact give the false impression of an unblemished saint.
We can only appreciate a human being for who they were by knowing, as far as it is possible to know, the whole person, warts and all.
That’s true humanity. All else is just empty iconography.
17
@rachel b portland
Alleged brutal history. Settling nuisance lawsuits prudent legal action--cottage industry targeting rich young athletes-- saving millions through dragged out litigation even when "winning" civil suit.
6
Twitter is useful in one way lately.
It gives the opportunity for Trump to paint himself into a corner with his raging tweets.
For instance, he tries to claim executive privilege regarding Bolton, but Trump's own comments invalidates that argument.
His impulsive use of the program doesn't help him.
All the more strange since his press secretary doesn't do her job.
23
@Stephen I wish I shared your optimism about Trump’s tweets “painting him into a corner”.
Instead, he insults, belittles, bullies, contradicts himself, and flaunts his incompetence and narcissism while his 40 million supporters either blindly cheer him on as he “sticks it to the libs”, or turn a blind eye, grimace, and remind themselves it will all be worth it when Roe v Wade is overturned or when their tax return comes in.
1
"(Ms. Sonmez, who has come forward with details of her own sexual assault, told her colleague Erik Wemple that her tweets were, in part, to make survivors like herself who follow her feel seen). (sic)"
Sonmez's avocation is victim advocacy. Meritorious in its own right, imo that activity poses a professional challenge and perhaps an ethical conflict to a reporter. Management had a legitimate concern about reportorial credibility and objectivity. It didn't handle that well in its overreaction, but the basic motivation was valid.
64
@Rocky
Iam sorry, her article could of waited 24 hours. Mrs. Bryant doesn't have any rights? she lost her husband and child? We all lived thru the experience, we saw what happened, her children lost their sister and nine other friends were on the flight.
She could of shown some respect to the grieving families, but she didn't she had to make it all about her pain. I am sorry she was assaulted as we are for anyone who has endured a horrific experience as this is. She still could of waited the story would of been told in detail, but she had to be the first and
sorry I don't believe her motivations.
7
@Rocky The basic motivation should have been to write her own story about her avocation, not post someone's old story which she posted with no commentary.
7
"Sonmez's avocation is victim advocacy."
Please cite a reliable source saying that.
7
As it relates to the state of journalism in a digital age and in the context of social media . . .
The focus needs to be kept on journalism.
My mother was for some years the night news editor at The Washington Post. She'd paid her dues having started on a small paper as a general assignment reporter and photographer back in the days of the old Speed Graphic cameras.
She knew her newspapers, top to bottom. I recall one night that I went downtown to meet her for supper. She allowed she would be late. It seems Harry Truman had died right on deadline. I went upstairs, and watched her tear that day's paper apart and put it back together again. Check with the obit and photo editors. Call the pressroom and tell them to set up for a flysheet to make room for two more pages. It took her 45 minutes.
More to the point, at The Post, in an earlier and similar role at The Evening Star, and as Assistant Managing Editor at the Washington Times (How's that for diversity of editorial pages?) she was a journalist.
She had no tolerance for opinion on her news pages. The first opinion a reporter wrote in would be edited out. Any protest, there would be a motherly talk. Third offense, a trip to the woodshed.
Yes, in the current environment, with the news and social media sharing a platform, there are new considerations, and it can be a fine line. Mom would get that if she were still around.
The Guild and management need to take a breath and agree on some guidelines/guardrails.
82
@Scott I think the point, or implication, of the article is that things have changed. Now, you may say things should go back to the way they were, but that's just not a practical solution. It is impossible. Society has changed, for better or worse. Consequently, news outlets operate within the context of that society and its demands.
On a separate note, I take issue with the assertion that news agencies acted as an objective source crusading against opinions leaking into their reporting. Objectivity, as it is understood journalistically, is a delusional ideal. 'Objective' writing will always tend towards the 'official story' from the authorities or government. Look at, for example, the New York Times' role in swaying public opinion against the Arbenz administration in Guatemala. also, when an article gives 'both sides of the story', they often obscure the importance of the reporting itself. Think of how climate change was covered in the news. If you give both perspectives an official platform to present an analysis of a set of facts/data, it creates the illusion that both perspectives should be considered with the same amount of seriousness.
10
@Scott Your comments are commendable as they highlight the professionalism of your mother as a journalist, and also as you obviously appreciated and understood what it really takes.
But I couldn't help reading the comments by Gary Crigger especially since he sounds so exacting and pertinent to the times, and has a 'moot point' to make. However I object to his argument and reasoning because he overlooks that even at the time of your mother's career, the responsibility on the shoulders of the journo was no different, and the consideration of "no tolerance for opinion on [ her ] news pages" is well - taken, and is especially pertinent in today's environment, and in the specific context where you make your comments.
Superb for you to remind or coach us on the 'spirit' of journalism. That should not and does not change, irrespective of so - called 'social media' or whatsoever.
11
@Gray Crigger He is not saying "you may say things should go back to the way they were"; he is clearly stating that his comments are pertinent in the sense that they "relate[s] to the state of journalism in a digital age and in the context of social media".
7
Practicing publishing without editing is what makes newsrooms unready for trolls. Just because Congress blundered, and wrote a law suspending defamation liability for electronic publishers, is no reason serious publishers have to do it that way.
Reading before publishing (editing) has more ways to help than just preventing libel suits. It is the only foundation which ever supported journalistic competition on the basis of content quality. Throwing editing overboard, as tweeting does, is the source of the problem, Mr. Warzel.
73
@S.P.
I agree.
Where did the newspaper editors go? Where are the copy editors?
I only read the NYT online, so perhaps the published analog physical paper is different and has been edited more thoroughly.
However, I read online articles, particularly those written in the first person voice, and I am constantly amazed at typos, especially homophones.
4
Absolutely true.
2
Twitter and the social media universe are our current contexts for mob rule and violence. In the Westerns of an earlier era, there was a noble sheriff who stood up to the mob, who stood for facts and the rule of law. This was a face to face confrontation, there are no faces on the internet, which is what makes this kind of mob one to truly fear and yes regulate.
82
Twitter is a part of News and like it or not, it's here to stay.
I work in a TV newsroom. 33 plus years. I'm an ENG editor, a foot soldier. Reporters at the station are instructed to tweet 5 to 10 times a day, to drive viewers to the station. The newsroom uses Twitter to both post and receive breaking news and videos. It is a tool that's not going away.
I don't like it. The anonymity of Twitter and online posting encourages cruel and abusive behavior. (We would see more of it here in the NYT comments if not for the moderator.)
And much of Twitter isn't verified till well after it's posted, and quite frankly, everyone has their phone in their hand all the time, distracting from the task at hand.
Call me old fashioned, but as my mom told me, if you wouldn't say or do it face to face, you shouldn't text, post or tweet it either.
174
@D. DeMarco
Agree!
Anonymity neutralizes shame and guilt feelings indispensable for the Modulation of aggressive ingroup behavior. There are no two such things at the same time as a sustainable society with civil security and an anonymous internet.
1
@D. DeMarco
"Twitter is a part of News and like it or not, it's here to stay."
Twitter is rot and its here to stay.
2
@D. DeMarco you are not old fashion it's just greed driving everything above all.
1
These are the wild west frontier days of internet communication. Life has changed so much and so quickly that, not only can one not count all the ways, the basic inventory of impacts is still being compiled. Hidden dangers lurk around every corner. No wonder everyone is so terrified and jumpy, leaping blindly into committing foolish defensive errors.
One thing that surely will happen over time is that the blind and furious pursuit of virality will become tempered. Ordinary mortals tend to be overwhelmed by the heady tonic of instant internet fame. Egos suddenly explode. But, then, in the wake of celebrity comes the inevitable wave of troll nastiness and its undertow of personal threats. Only the most unabashedly desperate for publicity in any form will continue to risk swimming in these shark-infested waters.
The instinct for survival is powerful. It will surely begin to kick in.
7
@woofer My instinct about Twitter never had to "kick in" as I never followed the rest of those lemmings off that cliff.
3
Twitter has become what the Moral Majority was in 80’s: judgmental snobs. I could add hypocritical too. All this reporter did was alert folks to more historical background info on Mr. Bryant. That’s it. That’s all it was - facts about his life.
This reporter was not wrong in featuring those links. This part of Bryant’s past was pivotal for his marriage, his profession and his future. Had the outcome been different his career or marriage may have ended then. Doubtful Nike would have taken him on again.
However, this reporter and those WaPo higher-ups should have known this was going to upset Twitter. Usually one doesn’t want to mention bad things to survivors in the the first days following a tragic death.
In today’s metoo climate women today look at this as not a just punishment. No matter that it was settled between just the two parties in 2003. Matters are never settled on Twitter. It’s all about provocation. WaPo should have understood that too.
What the WaPo higher-ups should have been concerned about was that the reporter linked another publication. I remember when this occurred and I am sure the Washington Post did some fine reporting on it in 2003 that could have been linked.
22
@Sheela Todd
The issue is how quickly she made her important points, after the family just was given the notification that Kobe and their daughter were dead. Nine other people who had families who loved them were also dead and the police had not even released their names. There were nine people on this flight whose families and communities are suffering.
Have we become such animals that we cant take a break and give the families time to process their lost as we would fellow human beings?.
It was all about the writer not about the grief of the people who were part of this story. now we have to hear about her death threats? I am sorry that people are carrying on, I live my life not being on social media because I don't want to read or hear the hate that goes on their. I make comments here but no further.
I hope the families involved in this horrific tragedy have walled themselves off from the world of social media it will not lighten their grief but only add to there suffering.
7
@Sheela Todd So this worst time in his life is the first thing you think of when he dies in a tragedy with his 13 year old daughter and 7 others?
The charges were dropped. The accusers settled. His family didn't leave him. But you are offended, right?
4
"All this reporter did was alert folks to more historical background info ..."
No. The Post reporter was crudely editorializing on a current event. Reporters should never editorialize.
Instead, the Post reporter should have pitched a story idea. Or written an OpEd and submitted it to the Post's opinion editors.
3
Disintermediated mass communication is powerful...for good and evil.
Agree to disagree and move on. Threats, intimidation, etc are what's wrecking everything, not the disparity of opinions. There's so much latitude to express your opinions, ignore other opinions, etc without resorting to those things.
2
The two golden rules of social media:
-- All platforms are publishers
-- "Public" on any platform = "Public" everywhere -- including the "real" (i.e. non-electronic outside interacting) world
I get that people want to believe that how their behavior online is completely different than in real life, and they don't want to be chastised for what they post. But because tweeting and posting are conscious acts seen by the public, that's simply not possible: people *will be* and *are* held accountable for what they post.
"Broadcast everything, but exercise restraint" isn't contradictory, but a call for exercising judgment in what's posted. That goes for all users of social media but doubly so for those who earn their living there.
20
@Victor Wong but you shouldn't get threats to your safety by wanting to have a discussion in real life or online about a complex but factual topic. Threats =/= chastising
For two generations the Post has been a national treasure but in this incident it demonstrated a profound sexism that completely undercut the pride it has long taken in having been owned by one of the most remarkable women in American newspaper history. It also exposed the day to day realities of even the most successful professional women, which is that we can expect our behaviour to be judged by our bosses and the general public in ways that are utterly inappropriate and also dangerous to our mental and physical well-being. Nearly half a century after a new wave of feminism swept through American life, the woman with a career (which has long been most women) still faces obstacles very few men have to endure, unless, of course, you lost a child at Sandy Hook and have to go into hiding because of death threats from men who think you made the whole thing up. And who are these trolls and why does society continue to tolerate them? Freedom of speech is a legal right, but freedom from social condemnation from those around you for behaving badly is not.
5
@kate Not that i think you will understand. There are things men endure that women cannot understand as well it is the human condition. This franchising you do in you comment is just that, creating an environment where we are at each other constantly with our own views of right and wrong. No different than extreme views on politics or religion making one a victim really just makes us all victims doesn't it.
This journalist simply stepped outside her job to report fairly and became part of the social media mob, subject aside.
2
Whether or not Ms. Sonmez should have been suspended, she did display terrible judgment. Rushing to emphasize a single mistake (and one with contested details) in an otherwise exemplary life represents the kind of "cancel culture" that plagues social media today. In the end, Ms. Sonmez simply got what she gave -- after trying to be the arbiter of morality and decide who should be praised and who not, she was subject to the same judgments both on social media and in her organization. Plus, the lack of humanity in trying to denigrate someone who just died in a tragic accident with their child is abhorrent. Mr. Warzel is right; you should be ready when the cancel culture you practice comes for you.
17
@Incredible
Fantastic comment.
1
Someone dies, and a reporter tweets about a dismissed court case? Right away, rubbing it in the grieving family and fans faces? That is always rude and wrong, whether or not it violated their social media policies.
Where is the humanity? Give it a week, then post about the complicated legacy or whatever.
12
I would really like to think that the journalists whose work I read in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and elsewhere are well rested and have the time to do the incisive, complete pieces that the Times and its major competitors are known for. I don’t like to think that they are compelled to put in what amounts to compulsory overtime, writing inconsequential little tidbits for Twitter and other online platforms. Regardless of what it may once have been, Twitter is now the equivalent of the squabbles in a high-school cafeteria, only it’s much worse than that. In high school, you know your time there is limited, and once you get out, there’s nothing more they can do to you. Twitter, as we have seen, can get you fired from your job, threatened with death, and made a permanent nonperson. So I wish the owners of the Times and the Post would tell their staffs to forget about Twitter; just go home and get some sleep.
8
The tweets were personal and that is in conflict as her as a journalist, just my opinion. Had she published the Bryant sex case as a part of a balanced piece I’m thinking she may have been in safe territory.
This being said the coverage of the tragedy is way over the top in the news cycle.
4
"... as a part of a balanced piece ..."
Newspaper reporters can always pitch story ideas. In the present case, the Post reporter was crudely editorializing on a current event. Reporters should never editorialize.
The problem is with newspaper editors who set mushy boundaries, as Warzel explains: "Inside publications, news and opinion bleed together; opinion writers report while reporters opine via news analysis."
"... the coverage of the tragedy is way over the top in the news cycle."
The nice thing about newspapers and online media is that you can ignore stuff you don't want to read. The Times's web site makes that easy with the navigation links and the search box.
@B Mc
Well maybe it is well over the top because we have writers who want to let us know how they think about everythign which is just insulting.
give these families, the space, peace that they need, however since we are all about the clicks and making money that will never happened. since most newspapers are owned by hedge funds they are all looking at the bottom line.
Think of Prince Harry and Megan, how many times have we heard on the news about his mother. they exploited her life to sell papers and the same will done to Kobe. All about making money
1
Why was “death of retired (like most, terribly overpaid for what they contribute to society) athlete” tale not only front-page news, but tied to another story that belonged on the business or entertainment pages about how it “cast a pall” over an industry awards show.
I bet the guy who was great at tossing a ball through a hoop and all those entertainers who appeal to our lowest common denominator in music each made/make as much a day as a good reporter at even the best of our few remaining good newspapers makes in a year.
Reporters may well yet save our nation from a horror of a corrupt president. Reporters whose names very rarely become household names.
Bread is necessary. Pro athletes and LCD entertainers deserve to be earning the near-starvation wages dedicated community paper reporters are still paid for their 60-hour weeks, paying the dues and honing the skills it takes (plus luck) to make the NYT- and a middle-income job.
3
The twitter part of this is the problem. The reporter has a right to post whatever she wants on twitter. But there are no guarantees that there won't be repercussions.
For me, I found it interesting that common sense wasn't used by Ms. Sonmez or her bosses at the Post. She didn't stop to think of the power of her words and their affect on the other victims of the crash. She also did not calculate that waiting and writing a longer piece about Kobe Bryant's complex life and legacy would have been much stronger than a tweet with a link.
Her bosses made a knee jerk reaction which usually goes wrong. All told, regurgitating this story quickly and without much thought ended badly. Too bad, it could have been so much better.
4
I'm a freak; a real weirdo these days. I grudgingly use a cell phone. I don't use Twitter. I don't watch TV news. I don't listen to radio news. I'm detoxing from Facebook. And inspired in part by The Privacy Project, I'm gradually removing my presence from all social media. I don't live in a yurt in the Siberian tundra. I'm not living off-the-grid deep in a mountain bunker. And I'm not crazy (yet) despite what all the voices around me tell me. What I AM is a retired engineer and scientist who was one of many midwives to the birth of the World Wide Web in the late 1980s. In the early 1990s I championed the adoption of the web to family, friends, and co-workers with the zealousness of a true believer. And then, just as today, people criticized, chastised, or rolled their eyes at me. A close friend recently called me a “virtual hermit”. At social gatherings I'm often frowned at for trying to start an actual conversation when everyone else has their heads bowed genuflecting to Candy Crush or the latest hot app. But as war wagons full of trolls drive us headlong toward the cultural apocalypse, I stubbornly persist in getting ALL of my news from reading reputable, credible, sources; The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and several science and technical journals. Go figure.
7
@Rick Johnson
Its great to be a freak, know that you are not alone. I was reading the NYT paper the other day on the subway and this gentleman told me he didn't think people still read the newspaper. I said maybe not on the F train but I read my paper proudly and I know how to think on my own.
I didn't read this lady's piece but from the uproar it shouldn't have been printed, not till people were able to process the death.
Weirder perhaps was how the WaPo comments were policed. Several posters had innocuous posts removed for no apparent reason, as the pressure against the suspension of their reporter built.
Newspapers (I'm old, they are paper to me even though I use only my computer) are precious. People who ranted that they would cancel their subscription were over-reacting, but the Post was seriously under-reacting. They have one eye on survival, but the other just has to be on truth.
1
You don't think tweeting about a 16yo case where Kobe was not convicted of anything showed poor judgement? He is dead, so the story only has the potential to hurt his widow and surviving children. Seems like the definition of poor judgment, or just mindless hatefulness. If I was Sonmez's employer I would wonder why she felt the need to put this out there and whether she is a net liability to the paper going forward. It isn't a culture war, it is a question of humanity and dignity.
6
@Todd. I fully expect the accusations around Bret Cavanaugh to come up once he passes this earthly realm. It would seem intemperate to interrupt his funeral or picket along the funeral route a la Westboro Baptist Church, but reporting on the past controversy would seem legitimate.
Nuisance lawsuit, you say. Perhaps, but recent reporting, however ill-timed, reminds us that the medical staff who examined the young woman at the time said there were innumerable scratches on her privates consistent with a violent non-consensual encounter.
In any case the truth seems murky enough that this incident was bound to be included in the public discourse just as Bret "I like beer" Cavanaugh will have an asterisk by his name. I don't expect the family to publish it in the funeral bulletin, but any responsible news outlet will.
Mr. Bryant seems an examplar of hard work, determination, and was, or became, a family man extraordinaire. (Bryant did apologize....to his wife for adulatory.) Fans are doing him no service sending death threats or obscenities to a reporter. The latter seems in poor taste, the former, downright illegal.
I don't follow Twitter, a longtime friend has told me how mob-like the reactions can be. This NYT comment section is the extent of my postings on anything resembling social media. I like it here for the general civility and many thoughtful posts, including yours.
Perhaps news outlets are in a no-win situation regarding Twitter. I dunno.
This "cancel culture" that the self-anointed arbiters of right and wrong have made the new norm will eventually come back to attack them if they say/think/post something that is at the moment unacceptable. The objective of journalism is to report the facts (who, what, where, when, why, how) and opinion should be labeled as such. Unfortunately people seem to only want to attack and destroy those who have a differing opinion rather than rationally and civilly.
3
@Paulie.P
This is about decency , something that people seem to have forgotten about in real life. Sending a thank you card, walking in front of someone is called excuse me, giving a seat to a senior citizen, that is not cancel culture but it is called humanity and decency.
There is a time and a place to publish all of the truth, hours after someone passes is not the time
Antisocial media, as I call it, is like a drug for the masses and also a weapon. The best answer is to just not participate in the feeding frenzy. I cancelled all of my social media accounts a few years ago and am far happier without it.
5
Her higher-ups at the Post were making the trolls go away. If one being criticized by trolls is loudly critiqued, it can result in her being left alone and generate for her a greater sense of security!
The Post, it may have been defending her in a way!
If she tweeted her suspension and the accompanying criticism from her higher-up(s), this may have waylaid the pressure she was under in relation to trolling activities.
Unhappy followers may have believed she was being punished institutionally and then let go.
On a somewhat different but related note, writing can create attachment – which can cause suffering for both writer and reader.
Reflecting on justice outside the legal system, perhaps community hearings and the generation of guilt, and subsequently writing about it, even just in a private diary – this can make sense when done by someone
The Post could have said they would review the situation without suspension. Reporter was telling the truth and not making something up. WAPO is wonderful but this was an overreaction and not well done.
On the other hand it was a cheesy thing to do including using personal abuse history. Not the effective way to combat sexual violence.
2
While I deeply sympathize with all the grieving families who lost loved ones on this tragic helicopter accident including the Bryant family, the Kobe tributes have been over the top. He has been talked about as if he were up there with Jesus, Martin Luther King and Gandhi.
Yes, I get it, he was a spectacular athlete, a really extraordinarily talented basketball player. However: Basketball is a ball game. It is not the cure for cancer or a new breakthrough on world peace.
It is a bit sad that people think that someone who excels at playing with a ball is a "hero." Seriously? My idea of a hero is George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Tubman or Sojourner Truth.
PS: The Post should be ashamed, utterly ashamed, for the way it treated its reporter who did nothing more than remind people of a few simple facts.
7
It's all going to get shut down or, at least, heavily controlled or weaponized by the powerful and the public is going to be pleading for it to happen.
I've spent much of my life arguing against the gatekeepers and controllers and defending unbridled freedom and human potential only to turn around and see the people I've been defending act in ways that confirm the opinions of the gatekeepers and controllers. I'm on your side. Please stop confirming their opinions.
3
Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, etc comments and followers are part of job interviews in many "visible" positions or where they hype the industry or employer.
2
I'd like the article to have said what "inbox" was "bombarded"? Her Twitter account, Wash Post, all, other. etc. Did I miss that info? Computing machines are rather deliberative and I want to protect myself from bombardment. I seem to think that precise info on how computer media users actually weaponize or troll or bombard would be helpful-an appreciative Wash Post reader.
1
"Did I miss that info?"
Yes. Follow the first link in the OpEd to a Wash. Post piece by the Post's media critic.
"... I want to protect myself from bombardment."
Don't publish your email address. Don't have a Twitter account. Etc.
However, newspaper reporters can't do that -- they sometimes get leads or story ideas by those means.
For example, scroll to the end of the OpEd to see Warzel's email address and Twitter handle. You will see something similar at the end of many Times articles.
And the chilling effect on free speech is now minus zero thank to the internet.
19
@sjs
Yes, that which was supposed to free humankind instead seems to have had the reverse effect. It's quite sad - humans always seem to do it to themselves.
10
I'm a computer guy, not some aging Luddite. For the life of me I don't understand how people find the time to mess around with Twitter, text messages, Facebook, Instagram, and all the rest. I get a few minutes in the morning to read this newspaper and that's about it. I have work to do. Catch you later..
53
@Johnny Your job probably doesn't incorporate at implicit or explicit requirement to participate in social media. As this article points out, many journalists are expected to have a significant social media presence and their employers often benefit from their journalists' engagement on Twitter etc.
8
@Johnny, I'll tell you how. I'm in construction where the younger workers are chained to their cell phones. In a nutshell, they do a lot less work.
34
@Johnny Have you walked around any large workplace or organization in the last 10 years or so ? You ask how folks find the time ? I can think of one very large facility in particular, where the better part of the work force - not just the young, but ever age group (even the "aging" Luddites) spend the better part of the day tapping away on their drug of choice. And NO one tells them to put it down on company time. No one. Management must be afraid of violating their "rights" by requiring them to do the job.
It is disgusting.
1
Looking from the outside of the world of journalism, I think that is precisely the internet who gave personal voice to journalists (and everybody else).
The first amendment has been always about giving liberty of expression to the owners of the means of mass communication. Not to the individual who did not have the means to communicate. Sure, you could still go to a park, like in London and speak your ideas to other people walking around you. But that is limited.
The owners of these means are the ones who determine what is published or broadcasted. The internet has allowed us to know more about the persons we read in the media. I am sure management is very aware.
We live in a country with liberty of expression. Trump not news outlet's management is the real threat to the second amendment. Beware of alternative truths.
1
What about basic decency? She should have waited and given the family time to grieve.
30
@BarrowK
I agree. The case was settled, without assigning guilt, years ago. What good could come from bringing up the issue when so many are grieving, especially now when Bryant is unable to defend himself. It seems like a pretty cheap shot to me.
This does not excuse the trolls who published threats and the reporter's personal information.
12
I agree that the reporter here should have exercised some common decency and restraint while friends, family, and the public were still dealing with the loss of someone they cared about.
And if the reporter here posted her tweet on an account associated with her employer, then I feel the employer had a right to make plain that it was concerned about decency (although it is not clear that was the Post's purpose)
This is not to suggest that free speech should be curtailed even in the name of courtesy. But there was ample time before the crash to discuss whether Mr. Bryant's past was "fraught," and there will be ample time in the future.
3
@BarrowK Nope. The family will grieve for a long time, so neither the reporter nor you and I know how long that is. And speaking of basic decency, forcing sex on people is pretty indecent. Kobe's fans are entitled to their grief, but the public is entitled to facts.
I'm not a basketball fan, and when Mr Bryant's death was reported my first thoughts were how terrible and then, isn't he the guy who raped some girl in Denver and then paid her off?The facts are out there.
There is much truth in this column. I might add this - just as Trump didn't create this culture war we are in but rather leveraged it, so is it that our media outlets didn't create this culture war either. It is real and it isn't going away anytime soon.
7
What's up with all of this 'culture wars' and 'people of color' and 'populism' euphemistic nonsense?
The Civil War was a war. And so was the American Revolution. Along with all of the violence directed at multiple Indigenous nations.
The Civil Rights movement was a cultural political socioeconomic struggle. Women's suffrage, equal rights and # MeToo were /are struggles. As is the LGBTQ movement.
Every human being is a 'person of color' due to the evolutionary fit DNA pigmented response need to produce Vitamin D and protect genes from damaging mutations. I have never seen a really 'black' nor 'white' person. I have seen dark and light people.
While 'populism' is a benign convenient distraction from the ethnocentric nationalism and sectarianism that has bathed so much of human history in blood, sweat and tears.
21
@Blackmamba
You may not see a war, but...
About 40% of this country and thir principal media exponents, Murdoch, et al, consider themselves to be onward Christian soldiers.
They may do it to sell advertising, but it is effective.
On the flip side, consider the effect of "Strange Fruit" on listeners. How about "Blowin; in the Wind"? "We Shall Overcome"?
But for A. Lincoln, there would have not been the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments and without them....
Charles Warzel is obviously a very intelligent journo, and his piece is brilliant. But at the same time, he is evading the issue that arises when 'prominent journalists' make comments on Twitter or their articles, and when those comments are seen as 'politics'.
Obviously the case he has cited, does not fall into that category where the journo might be seen as playing politics. But that does not mean Charles can get away with general observations on the basis of this case, when he well knows that the pressures felt by a publisher to first put a distance between a journo whose comments has unleashed protest on some scale, are often based on the larger concern that the journo might have indulged in social media activity that got hostile reactions from social media, and that the first priority is to protect the rest of the 'team' from any possible fallout.
Also I find the content and context disappointing because the 'headlines' led me to expect a more serious discourse of what happens when the trolls come for the media / newsrooms ?
Neither the cited case and the arguments reach the level of that discourse. Maybe Charles will take time to write another piece more pertinent to that premise.
14
A well written,clear overview, of an important complex issue.
During a conflicted era.
In which facts, fictions and fantasies,
all to easily, become “goulashed.” By
agendaed influential people and systems.
Aided by toxic, ever-present, complacency and complicity.
Also by all-too-many ordinary folk. All over.
An additional value, norm, and ethic could be included:
Personal Accountability.
For one’s harmful words.
One’s SILENCE.
When voiced outrage is needed. Appropriate.
One’s actions.
One’s inaction(s).
When opportunities exist to make a needed difference.
In order to achieve, and sustain, civil interchanges.
Mutual respect.
Empowered compassion.
Mutual help, if and when needed.
Equitable types, levels and qualities of wellbeing.
Within a framework of menschlichkeit.
To overcome our enabled WE-THEY violating culture.
1
Americans are well aware that public figures of the stature of Mr. Bryant are often charged with offenses which are not true for the shake down of money. The implication, if you can call it that, was Ms. Sonmez' feeling he was guilty, something that she cannot possibly know.
25
@CARL E It's an easy fix for "people of Stature": Don't be behind closed doors when meeting someone alone. But then, one doesn't need to have this "stature" to know that. Oh, and adding to that sexual misconduct, highly volatile. A married person having sexual relations outside of the marital bond, is already misconduct, isn't it? But then, here's something: Don't all people have "stature"?
@CARL E
Not just guilty but convicted by an unseen jury and sentenced to a life sentence of being evil with no hope of redemption.
This was an attack on Kobe's remaining daughters who not only had their father die, but a sister too.
The only future war I see on Twitter is hate. Hate for 3 young girls who's father died hours earlier. We owe the dead nothing, we owe the living family compassion and decency. Hopefully this thoughtless and mean act can start to change journalism.
Give me a break.
Enough with the near constant news about Kobe Bryant’s death. It is always heartbreaking when someone dies that is well-known.
But do you know is what is even more heartbreaking? To see the world mourn with fervor someone they’ve never met. There seems to be no awareness around this fact. At all.
Where’s the never-ending news cycle content when a cop is shot in the line of duty, or a firefighter dies in a structural fire....a service member at war or a neighbor who volunteered 30 years in his or her community?
It’s beyond tragic that KB’s helicopter went down. I have deep compassion for the pain all connected families are going through right now. Bryant did a lot for his community and that is absolutely commendable.
But this shouldn’t be a near number one news story. Ever. We’ve lost our way. This is what’s wrong with us.
118
@Liz Hastings So people expressing grief over a horrible tragedy is "more heartbreaking" than the death of a husband and father, alone with his young daughter, as well as the other people who died in the plane crash? Wow.
3
@Liz Hastings Of course people are going to "mourn" more over, say, John Lennon being shot in the street than some anonymous insurance claims adjuster. But I'm not sure it's evidence that we've lost our way. (There is far better evidence available).
2
Lis. I get it. You are not a math person. Or humanitarian. A helicopter went down with 9 people in it that died. Older and younger people. You have an agenda, my dear.
1
The only thing that Twitter needs, and Facebook too for that matter, is some good competition. (well, maybe not the only thing).
10
Seems to me that sharing a tweet that merely refers to something already in the public record is, as the Fox folks might say, a "nothingburger." However, there is a backstory here that is difficult to assess. The reporter describes her sexual victimization, which suggests a particular sensitivity to the subject of her tweet. However, as many commentators don't state (as our columnist here doesn't), her history of victimization is disputed. That may be the larger story, and one that in effected served as a back story to the current scandal. But, as usual, it's a world of pain in which everyone gets hurt and there's no absolution anywhere.
12
@RR3
So, she's credible as a professional national reporter, but NOT credible as a human being in recounting details about her own life??
This is an excellent piece on the incident and the implications it has for journalism. I was glad to see the support that Ms. Somnez received from her colleagues, from Eric Wemple's Media Criticism blog, and from the Washington Post's Union. However, I am disappointed that the Post's senior management had they offered a more full throated apology for both the suspension and for their lack of support when Ms. Somnez's safety had been threatened and her home address circulate online.
30
Reflecting on justice outside the legal system, perhaps the trial of life after shaming, the generation of guilt, and other things, and subsequently writing about it, even if just for oneself in a private diary – this can make sense when done by someone suffering or distraught due to strange reactions – we may need to disconnect ourselves from that which we penned or have shared.
2
@M. C. Major We sometimes do not know what experiences another has undergone – whether in the legal system or outside it.
4
@M. C. Major We sometimes do not know what experiences another has undergone – whether in the legal system or outside it. I believe Divine Retribution is no joke! We get rewarded when we do good and we are suitably punished for any wrongs, as required to be!
My uncle traumatized me every Thanksgiving from age 5 by describing in detail the turkey's lifecycle from egg to platter. I had no knowledge of farms and often thought of animals as meals. Uncle had lost his index finger in an assembly line accident which made the narration all the more surreal. There were at least 12 around the table, not including satellite high chairs and everyone laughed til gravy came out of their noses. Except me. This went on for some years and somehow I generalized the trauma to any A to B narration including teachers of all kind. Natural history was the worst as humans weren't alive that far back so how did they know for sure? To this day I tell people, "Please don't prove it.Give me some references or links and I'll figure it out for myself." I have won awards for "thinking differently" and I want to say, "You don't know the half of it, not because I I won't tell you but because you'd have no good reason to find out." It's okay. Just be aware of how much you probably don't know about the story, how many versions it might have, and especially these days when everyone is a writer, is important, is gifted, is special (all true but who's got the time?), the most important questions you can ask are: 1) what do I already know; 2) how many possible versions can I think of; 3) what does this one add; 4) who's telling this version; and 5) why is she telling it. As Terry Southern said, See you in the funny papers.
9
Ms. Sonmez's problem is the current problem of journalism: unrelenting self-promotion of themselves and their causes with little concern for being a graceful human being.
I found Ms. Sonmez's tweet to be tactless. There was nothing of value she added, nothing that could not have waited a week or two. No new information. Instead, it was bad mouthing the dead while self-promoting, an "outrage" tweet. It shouldn't be a revelation to a reporter to find out that her "outrage" tweet generated outrage. If that's a surprise, you aren't much of a journalist.
Now we move on to "demands". She demands that the WaPo editors explain their behavior to her. Laughable.
This is the type of "journalistic" behavior most people find outlandish. Why, not just "right wing Trump supporters", but moderate independents find media to be untrustworthy.
As Journalists, stop hiding behind "freedom of expression" and start exercising some basic common decency as the rest of us do at work and in life.
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@They Agreed. Very poor taste and in line with this age. Anyone with a thought thinks everyone needs to hear it. His complicated legacy was part of most obits. As someone who has survived unwanted advances I remember him less for his earlier failing and more for what he attempted and succeeded in doing since 2008. He did more in one lifetime than a hundred people do in their one lifetime. His death has made more people say "I love you" or honor their every moment because you never know. We're doing this at a time when Americans need to better hear one another. Good on him for teaching us to have more compassion. They say when it's time to go, it's our time to go. Maybe his soul had done all it intended to do. Who can make sense of it all on this side? I can't. I'll say this...something in me has changed since this past weekend. Thank you, Kobe. Ms. Sonmez, thank you, too, but it could have waited.
38
@They
It seems she knew what she was doing, what the reaction would be, got the attention she wanted, and this article keeps in going.
Trumpist style of self promotion works!
32
@They
"but moderate independents find media to be untrustworthy."
Yes, because for 40 years they've been told by Rupert Murdoch and Rush Limbaugh that the network to be trusted is the one that pushes the most half truths, conspiracy theories and outright lies: Fox.
On top of all that perfidious flatulence, they've been telling us to hate our government; incessantly, ad nauseam. In a nation with millions of guns, did they really think there would be no consequences for their constant litany of racial hatred while stoking the anger of those who are fearful of changing demographics?
5
When someone dies suddenly and families and friends are devastated, maybe people can be left to grieve the great parts rather than be reminded of the controversial parts. Or must we always proceed to all possible points of view with all possible speed?
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@John leslie
Condemning rape is not a "possible point of view." It's rightfully addressing a crime that doesn't somehow magically lessen over time, no matter how hard the perpetrator and his fans might insist it disappear. The implicit call to "let it go" in the case of the flap surrounding Bryant's passing is one with which women, historically, are quite familiar. It does all rape victims, surviving and not, a huge disservice and just serves to shut up and shut down women further.
7
Mourning includes an appreciation of the person. The whole person. And not yheir deification.
At my father’s memorial I invited all comments, positive and negative.
It relieved a great burden on people and enabled them to reflect on my father’s and their own humanity, as well as on the fleeting and precious nature of life.
Nothing would be a greater tribute than to hear someone say about me, “I loved that SOB.”
I'm no Kobe fan, but what bothered me about Sonmez's actions was that she was trying to make the story about her and hide behind a cloak of journalism. She retweeted the Daily Beast story without providing any context. She alluded to her own experience as a sexual assault survivor as the reason for the tweets. Anyone who followed his career was already aware of the 2003 case, so it wasn't like she was breaking news. (I wouldn't have suspended her, but a harsh reprimand was definitely warranted.)
Whatever happened that night is a part of Kobe's life story, but it becomes a problem when people try to relitigate a matter that's already been settled in a court of law (regardless of whether or not you like the outcome). Whenever people brought this up, was it out of concern for the alleged victim ... or was it an opportunity to grandstand at the expense of her pain and suffering? (I see you, Abigail Disney!) If it's the former, context, nuance, and tact MUST be applied (and social media probably isn't the best platform, as Sonmez learned the hard way). If it's the latter, chances are you're not doing the woman any favors. Either way, Kobe could only receive forgiveness from two sources: the accuser and God. It wasn't Sonmez's place (nor anyone else's) to play judge, jury, and executioner -- that's what led to the suspension in the first place).
The bottom line remains he and eight other people died on Sunday; the focus should be on learning more about the cause of the accident.
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@Latrice Davis "Either way, Kobe could only receive forgiveness from two sources: the accuser and God." You are right, but I would add his wife to that list.
1
@Jennifer I concur. Given that she didn't file for divorce (and went on to give birth to three more daughters -- including the one who died with him on the helicopter), I think it's safe to say that she forgave him.
3
@Latrice Davis Wow. Speaking from on high are we? How arrogant this is. Sonmez, as a sexual assault survivor, was trying to make sure her followers who are also sexual assault survivors were not being made to feel invisible ONCE AGAIN, just like all the other times men are lionized while their crimes against women are treated as little dirty secrets that should be swept under the rug. Bryant left a 19-year-old woman with bruises on her neck and blood on her clothes. He eventually admitted his crime. There was never a conviction because the woman was too afraid to testify in court. SHE will live and die with the effects of this. Why should Bryant be covered in glory with no mention of this "dirty little secret?"
3
While there was nothing inherently wrong with Somnez's tweet, let's just cut to it: that tweet was sent mere hours after the accident when emotions were running at their highest. She had to know that it would be provocative. It's like throwing a rock at a hornet's nest. This isn't the first time we've seen Twitter destroy someone's reputation.
The Post was definitely wrong to fire her and they only did it to try to placate the Twitter mob. But she should have exercised better judgment, for her own sake, if nothing else.
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@PubliusMaximus
Emotions running high has been one of the classic way to excuse violence against women.
Mentioning something in the public record, about a public figure, even at a time of death does not justify death threats, and no one should feel like they should expect them.
In fact, any newspaper should mention those things in one's obituary, and most did in their official ones. Leaving their sports and entertainment "reporters" to gloss over anything that might be less than perfect about Mr Bryant.
The post didn't fire, they suspended, which they then later came out and said they were wrong to do. That her judgement was fine according to the Washington Post policies on social media use.
11
@Edward Brennan I did not excuse Kobe's behavior, but you also need to acknowledge that he was not convicted by a court of law. I'm sorry, but that's just a fact. And I certainly am not justifying death threats to the reporter, but you can't tell me with a straight face that she was completely unaware of the reaction she MIGHT get.
No one had talked about that incident since it was settled out of court. Why now?
2
@PubliusMaximus She wasn’t fired. She got put on administrative leave for a few days and has now returned to her job. But she got death threats.
A business, newspaper or other, should not accept threats to their employees on Twitter, no matter whether the employee says something that is pro or anti-business. Case closed.
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This is what happens in journalism when business types take over. These business types might be former journalists, but they have forgotten what it means to be a journalist. Reminds me of principals spouting the central office propaganda to teachers. Yes, principals were once teachers and so were most superintendents, but they have long forgotten what it is like in a classroom and most would rather shoot themselves than return to a classroom.
37
@Unclebugs ...or perhaps it is what happens when common sense and good taste take over. I would no more consider twitter, let alone a retweet, as news than I would consider those rants of the deranged idiot who stands on my corner shouting at the heavens each morning. The real story is that this is what happens when twitter-mania infects a real news organization.
I think this affair shows how constrained journalists are to speak their minds. They worry a lot about reputation. Their employers do too. The deference to authority that is taught in journalism schools needs to change. There were no real lessons in investigative journalism. There was even corruption in our investigative journalism class, which came out later. Not all journalists are like this. But I'd bet at least once or twice in a journalist's career, their publication chooses not to publish something they wrote because it's too risqué or would offend an important audience.
7
Ms. Sonmez's suspension was ridiculous and disgraceful. Celebrity in this country has gotten completely out of hand. I live just outside Los Angeles, and work in L.A. On Monday as I drove to work, the only - repeat only - story on the radio news station was Kobe Bryant's death. Never mind the coronavirus outbreak that just might turn into a global pandemic; never mind that impeachment thing, it was Kobe, Kobe, Kobe, and nothing else.
My first class (I teach seventh-grade) wanted to grieve for Kobe, and my 12/13-year-olds seemed shocked when I told them Kobe's death was sad, but I was even more sad that three young women the same age as them were never going to get to grow up and have a life.
I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Los Angeles plans a parade. Our society needs some perspective.
407
@Vesuviano
You're exactly right. I don't know what you teach, but you are instrumental in preparing the children to become the future of this country.
Kobe Bryant was a phenomenal athlete. He entertained us, and made millions of dollars doing it. That is what we value. Teachers have to constantly fight to make a genuine living wage, and they dedicate their lives to children who will be the leaders, workers and parents of the future.
Kobe Bryant played a game.
We do need perspective, but as long as we value (in every way) athleticism and celebrity, over genuine servants, we will continue to be bombarded by news of this kind. I am not hopeful.
20
@For the Love of Trees, My oldest son submitted his dissertation as the final step in completing a Ph.D. in English at UCLA in September. He has walked away from academia and now works as the 19th-century Americanist for a rare book dealer. He was an excellent teacher - or so many of his students said in their critiques of his classes at the end of each semester. And Ross Douthat wrote a depressing op-ed in this very paper, of all people, I know he writes about Education but did not link it to religion, which pleased me, about the tragedy of university English departments with a link to a series of articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education - truly, truly depressing. There is lots that he can do with the degree and he has to sort that out. And you are so right about what it is we value in Amerika today and it makes me ill.
4
@Vesuviano I notice you live in Cali. I bet if you hade posted your real name, the tolerant cancel culture there might have visited you to, in the words of Mao, think politically correct.
5
I always considered Twitter as a kind of marginalia--where people would voice opinions in the margins of daily life. Twitter isn't the text (or the news)--it's just the commentary that reacts to the news. Everyone's got an opinion, and unfotuntely Twitter give them a platform for sharing it
27
@Muddlerminnow
Exactly. Opinions are like rear ends; everyone has them, and they're usually full of crap.
@Muddlerminnow Yes, everyone's got an opinion. Obviously even you! You have this as your platform. Bet you think your comments are more informed than than those on Twitter.
Why do we care about celebrity deaths anyhow? The outpouring of grief and shrine construction over a complete stranger based on an imaginary and subjective perspective of this person should be considered aberrant behavior. This isn’t to say that people shouldn’t be recognized for the good they have contributed to the works. But the idolization and celebrity worship culture is unhealthy and only leads to more danger and divisiveness in an increasingly interconnected digital conversation.
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@Melba Toast
Thank you for your comment, one of the best I heard about the out-of-control idolization of celebrities. It started with Princess Diana's death and now is completely out of control.
I do not think that relatives of those that perished in this tragic accident appreciate the limelight.
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@Sarah Why start there. Why not go back to Archduke Franz Ferdinand or Franklin Roosevelt, or JFK...all as much celebrities as anything else. We all impute worthiness of grief to individual feelings we have about their relative value. They are all more celebrity than reality.
18
Melba. I am concerned. I am desperate to find out who the masked singer is. Celebrity takes us out of reality. Trump is a reality that i need relief from.
1
Media organizations exist to maximize advertising revenue, hence their use of social media to attract “eyeballs” to their content, no matter the consequence. I do not envy their management or staff, trapped playing a game they hate, with no other recourse.
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@JDice
If they hate the game, why not stop playing it?
No excuse.
2
Media outlets committed malpractice by NOT mentioning the issue. That's part of Bryant's legacy ... and to avoid discussion of it perpetuates the suffering that 2 woman had hoped would be over thanks to the #MeToo movement. But obviously we still have a LONG way to go in that regard.
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@notrace
I'm not into sports at all. When I started hearing the news, I wasn't sure who the subject of the stories was.
I thought Kobe Bryant was the basketball player who had admitted to taking advantage of a troubled young woman. With no mention of his admission in the news stories about the helicopter crash, I concluded I was wrong about who Mr. Bryant was.
Not mentioning the issue confused me and probably a lot of other people who aren't rabid basketball fans. (No big deal if only a few minutes or column inches of news had been dedicated to the story.)
7
A loving father with a family who had spent untold years giving pleasure to millions as a top professional athlete tragically dies with his young child need have his lowest moment brought up within 24 hours of his accidental incineration in some backwoods canyon?
2
@notrace Gee, I teach 7th grade and whenever I teach FDR, I don't feel compelled to mention Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, nor do I feel compelled to mention both JFK Dr. King's serial infidelities. Perhaps I will reconsider my teaching methods in light of your cogent comments. I certainly do not want to be accused of malpractice.
6
“Newsrooms and even the platforms have struggled with finding a new standard in the Trump era of disinformation.”
Sadly, newsrooms took the exact wrong tack. The right answer to accusations of false news would have been cold, disinterested reporting of facts. Instead they went with opinion, sensationalism, partisanship, and an aura of moral superiority that opens them wide open to claims of making up the news.
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@Jon F Yes, exactly.
2
@Jon F There has never been the "cold, disinterested reporting of facts" in reporting the news. Even Walter Cronkite and Jack Anderson each had their own point of view. If you just serve up facts, they are no longer news, they are truisms.
@Jon F Cold, disinterested, reporting of facts doesn't get you anything either, including respect. If it did, Fox News would be only doing that. I would argue there is no such thing as a universal truth for the most part and in every day matters, these are rare.
So everything is relative. And in terms of relativity, there is an ethical standard we should agree to and live by. I thought the US had figured it out but it looks like tribal behaviour has reared its head again.
A reporter for the Post -- or the Times, or NBC, or Vice -- is supposed be doing the hard work of reporting, not sitting at her desk tweeting every time there's an event that breaks into the news cycle. The justification for reporters on Twitter is that it attracts eyeballs to the "brand." But why should the people reading reporters' constant twitter stream bother? We have the primary example of how much Twitter substitutes for real work, real thinking in the White House.
Reporters, report. We don't need your comments on every little thing that happens.
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@Maggie
Respect is still part of the profession.
Why should an industry that shows no respect, toward anyone but themselves, receive any?
25
@Maggie For every lesson, there's a moment when perspective/sensitivity should prevail. You're welcome.
20
"... not sitting at her desk tweeting every time there's an event that breaks into the news cycle."
Evidently you haven't noticed what journalists usually tweet -- links to their own articles. Or they provide some additional background for their own articles.
It's impossible to generalize, so try scrolling to the end of a few Times articles and following the Twitter link for the reporter. You can do that from a web browser -- no app is needed.
"The tweets displayed poor judgment" That is the crux of what you are trying to support. Tweets.
15
Social media is designed to destroy the barriers between opinion and news, between information and influence. It is designed to run on the fuel of gossip and outrage. It is communication as pure commodity; no standards are relevant but numerical ones--forwards, clicks, dollars. It will keep getting worse until we ask ourselves what kind of society we want and demand the technology & media we need.
83
Whatever our thoughts on the matter, it seems all the more apparent that Twitter is inching closer and closer to being rightfully classified as a public threat rather than a public good. Much of what the platform is praised for is often counter to something sinister that Twitter originally hath wrought.
50
@Matt
When was it ever a public good? Mass generation of ephemeral tripe.
1
If our media systems are self reinforcing or not was a question, this piece confirms an answer.
Trumps affairs will go on forever because eyeballs won’t blink and they will help fill the coffers of those that own or manage both large and small media enterprises.
10
@RjW Nailed it. This piece included, no fault of Warzel's. Next up: this interesting fresh morph of usage for "culture war" -- fighting on some odd new fronts, it appears...
1
Mr. Warzel makes several good points and raises a host of interesting questions. But I believe the Felicia Sonmez story is quite simple:
The executives at the Washington Post made a profoundly serious mistake. The deadly helicopter crash was tragic and people do not need to be defined solely by the worst thing they ever did (or were accused of). Ms. Sonmez did post anything that was not true. Did the Post order their employees not to discuss the entirety of Mr. Bryant's public life? Do they have standard and consistent rules against mentioning misdeeds, crimes, or credible accusations against the recently deceased? Not to mention the names of people making threats? I think not.
"Democracy dies in darkness" is a good motto. But darkness can come from the executive suite as well as from a government office.
The free press is too important to our democracy to allow social media mobs to intimidate reporters and columnists or their bosses. The Washington Post should not have suspended Ms. Sonmez.
They need to live up to their motto.
173
@LT This assumes that the Post wasn't going to cover this angle...of *course* they were going to cover it...it was the timing and the bluntness....not the issue itself.
32
@LT as cute as the motto "Democracy Dies In Darkness" might be, it actually dies in the phantasmagoric mix of fact, opinion, and a be first even if not right, drive to brand, get eyeballs, and slum dwelling would be social media influencers. We are apparently headed towards a world in which newspapers, both printed and online, are no longer needed because we can all just monitor our twitter feeds and decide which opinions we want to bless as fact.
15
@Southern Hope
When exactly is a good time to cover allegations of sexual assault by a celebrity who also has done some good?
Bill Cosby arguably did a lot of good with his show, children's books and charity work. Yet is that what defines him now, or when he will pass away? Of course not.
The fact is that media have their love affairs with certain celebrities, and they bend over backwards to minimize them.
John Lennon was credibly accused of domestic violence, with police reports to boot.
So was Bill Murray.
Robert de Niro's history with women isn't all that great once you read his old Playboy interviews, either.
Just about every big sports star and music star have had allegations of partner abuse and/or sexual assault.
Yet people like Chris Brown, and many others still have healthy careers, with nary a mention of #MeToo or problematic behavior/opinion of women in their media interactions. Why?
What makes people like Harvey Weinstein and Woody Allen convenient punching bags? It's certainly not the credibility of the allegations.
83
Regardless of the methods and use of technology, the majority of us reading WAPO just want truthful reporting and stories. I can't imagine how much more damage Trump and his sycofants would have created without the NY Times and Washington Post's excellent articles and research over the past three years. Culture Wars, Technology Wars, whatever you call them, it's all about getting to the truth and reporting it.
As for Twitter. I have never and will never use it as a means of commnication. For all practical purposes Trump has drowned it in a swamp of lies.
As for technology in general over the past 80 years or so with the advent of TV, I can say my life is not any better with the use of computers, TVs, or the internet. In my 80's, I loved the simplicity of listening to the radio and listening to the news and Tales of the Lone Ranger, reading books, and playing outside for much of my entertainment. Flying Commercially then was delightful as compared to commercial flights today. Freeways are clogged with handsome cars traveling to work at 30 miles an hour, and Smart phones have created a generation of robots.
The basic reality is not all advances in technology bring health, wisdom and happiness to our society.
53
@David Michael Your position is understandable given both your age and nostalgia for a past that lives in your memory but was never a reality...except maybe for you.
@David Michael I agree re: your comments on reporting by the NYT and WAPO. So grateful for them both even w/ their faults and warts (sorry, it's true... no one is perfect).
This incident puts light on the question: are journalists bound by any sort of professional code (or company policy) that limits social media behavior? Can people trusted (and paid) to report the news be allowed to influence/compromise that responsibility on twitter? If they do can they complain about the reaction?
Many public employee professions (for obvious reason) do, but where is the professional press/media on this?
8
@keith Yes, journalists are bound to a code of ethics: https://www.spj.org/pdf/spj-code-of-ethics.pdf
And here is The Post's in-house code: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ask-the-post/wp/2016/01/01/policies-and-standards/
Marty Baron needs to sit down, read, and follow these codes. The fact that The New York Times published a piece about this matter shows that the professional media certainly are responding, although not Mr. Baron, himself. The Poynter Institute, a well regarded journalism think tank of sorts has responded.
"The same editors who want restraint from reporters online during a celebrity death would most likely also be furious if their Capitol Hill reporters were slow in live-tweeting a hearing or impeachment proceeding and fell behind the competition."
They can't have it both ways. Well, as employers, they think they can but it's patently unfair and as reported. the "punishment" was recinded 36 hours later.
But I"m still struck by management's lack of concern for the reporter's safety in this unrestrained age, where anything at all unleashes hostility, threats, and downright persecution.
If they want to make their point, they should develop precise guidelines for reporters' tactics both in the heat of battle and out, for covering celebrity deaths or not, for tweeting versus blogging.
Reporters can't read management's minds, anymore than they can know what will trigger death threats in our hyperpartisan, hypersensitive age.
39
@ChristineMcM ,
I suspect if a man had reported this same story, he wouldn't have been threatened, nor would his employer have suspended him.
83
@Orion Clemens I suspect the opposite. If the reporter had been a man, the suspension would have held, and there would have been, if anything, more vitriolic posts against him.
22
@Orion Clemens An easy card to play...with the added advantage that no proof is either required or possible.
11
What we see here is how quickly information is shared online today and how fast that affects social norms. At the very most, Ms. Sonmez's post about Mr. Bryant was impolite timing - the yesteryear social construct of "there's a time and place for bringing up one's faults and its perhaps least tasteful at the time of their death."
Now our news cycle is so compact and every changing that many often fight the urge to say any and everything about a topic before it falls out of the spotlight for the next thing.
We also have a president that has bucked social standards and "politeness" so that decorum is in question. What is off-limits now? Just because he said it, is it okay? Just because she wrote it, is it okay?
The Me Too movement has done so many positive things, but there will be some fallout - when to bring up past wrongs? Is it effective in this situation? There will always be gender bias too in what goes for men in public speaking and women.
Bottom line - speak your truth, but realize no one speaks in a vacuum and what's published on the internet is open to anyone's criticism forever - like it or not.
30
@Natalie,
I should not be required to admire someone simply because they have died.
But adulatory news reports that refer only to their positive side try to manipulate me to do just that.
I deserve to hear the whole story about the person, and then to make up my own mind.
10
Maybe you should ask his rape victim about decorum. I'm sure she thought it awfully impolite while he was forcing himself inside of her.
1
@Natalie I wasn’t aware there was a polite time to talk about rape.
I was a journalist in New York City from the early 1970s through the early 1980s, including a lengthy stint as a Reuters business reporter. It was a totally different world then, and journalists occupied a position that was much more respected then now.
Making sure a story was 100 percent accurate was the most important element in our reporting. Reuters was a wire service, and we competed with Dow Jones, which was part of The Wall Street Journal, to see who had the story the quickest.
We’re talking about seconds of time here because that was what stock traders needed to make the most competitive trades. Time is money!
It was also a much more primitive time in that we didn’t have cell phones, lap top computers or even beepers. Use of faxes were just beginning and they were often too blurry to read.
We did interviews, often face to face. We used telephones to dictate our stories, and we knew the location of every pay phone in the city.
When we wrote our stories, we often incorporated information that was previously reported. It was called “background” and our editors never questioned its use.
Fortunately,Twitter, Facebook and other social media did not exist, so we did not have to worry about tone, nuance or bias.
I’m not taking a walk down memory lane here just for fun. But there was a time in the not-so-distant past when accuracy and fairness determined excellence, and our profession was still admired.
It’s too bad we can’t go back to simpler times.
88
@Banjokatt
Business journalists and science journalists are still respected because they don't pepper their stories with opinions.
That's why Bloomberg News, Reuters, WSJ, and FT have healthy balance sheets and subscription revenue than general papers.
2
The cynic in me almost thinks these controversies are, if not completely deliberately manufactured, tacitly encouraged as a way to drive clicks and eyeballs towards the dying old media brands. News has fused with entertainment, and drama sells. Twitter is just reality TV version 2.0.
60
It would have been really nice if everyone involved had taken a pause before placing any statement or link on social media. In this case the WaPo reporter, the WaPo editorial board and management and those who threatened Ms Sonmez. I am not on any social media and really the main reason is because in this busy world anyone and everyone is trying to get some edge out there with little or no consideration that we are human, we can make mistakes and we can redeem ourselves over time. Like they say: It is nice to be important, but it is more important to be NICE!
15
@TheniD No, it’s not really important to be nice. It’s important to be honest and tell the truth, even when it’s difficult to hear.
12
@TheniD,
It’s not a reporter’s job to be nice or to make you feel good, but to be objective and report the facts.
It’s up to you to evaluate that information and make up your own mind about what it reveals.
I’m not a big fan of Twitter. I don’t see how it benefits anyone. I think that those who post frequently on Twitter have overinflated egos.
If you feel the need to react to every meme, write your ideas down in a notebook. Then come back in a few days and evaluate the value of your words.
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Yes, but the Twits can only write with their thumbs.
@Lucian Janik The problem isn’t Twitter and whether you like it or not...no one cares. The problem is with mobs that hound people for pointing out truth.
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@Lucian Janik Absolutely. A cesspool of groupthink, virtue-signaling, react-first-not-thoughtfully, self-aggrandizing binary slosh. Other than that, it's great.
I think sometimes we need diversity. Whether it is the idea or the views.
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Regardless over whether it was a violation of policy or not, the reporters tweed exhibited extremely poor judgement, and downright cruel behavior. A person who has a case against them dropped over 15 years ago— a beloved sports figure, father and family man had died along with his child. The nation is still in mourning. Why would this be brought up? People are innocent until convicted, and a dead man can’t defend himself.
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He admitted wrongdoing in a civil trial. That does not equate to innocence in any court of law.
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@Michael Jovanovic Civil court isn't about "right" or "wrong," only financial liability -- hence, the settlement. Regardless of what people (including Ms. Sonmez) think of the outcome, the case was settled in a court of law.
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First, I want to apologize directly to the young woman involved in this incident. I want to apologize to her for my behavior that night and for the consequences she has suffered in the past year. Although this year has been incredibly difficult for me personally, I can only imagine the pain she has had to endure. I also want to apologize to her parents and family members, and to my family and friends and supporters, and to the citizens of Eagle, Colo. I also want to make it clear that I do not question the motives of this young woman. No money has been paid to this woman. She has agreed that this statement will not be used against me in the civil case. Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter. I issue this statement today fully aware that while one part of this case ends today, another remains. I understand that the civil case against me will go forward. That part of this case will be decided by and between the parties directly involved in the incident and will no longer be a financial or emotional drain on the citizens of the state of Colorado.
Truly the words of an innocent man. /s
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Beautifully put.
Marty Baron needs to offer a real apology to Ms. Sonmez and WaPo's readers and commit to supporting employees facing internet mobs for doing their jobs.
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@Hmmm This is an employer - employee issue. I hope they leave me out of it.
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@liza
Not when an employer's product is a public service.
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@Hmmm Beautifully put.
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The "culture wars" at this point seem just to refer to specific networked computer games (in this case, Twitter) and their contestants more than any real "war" or even any real "culture". The vast majority of this country isn't on Twitter, and those who are usually only pay much attention to their own activity there.
Journalists shouldn't feel compelled to play along with these designs and media outlets need to go back to looking beyond tweets for reasons to hire (or fire) journalists like published work, education, expertise etc.
I'll add that I find articles like this one to have an uncanny almost eerie quality about them—some new genre where writer/reader, publisher/audience are collapsed into one. It's a thing now, when a publication just gets too "internetty".
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@Kevin
Maybe it's true that the vast majority of this country isn't on Twitter (I don't know, though - is it really?), but I'm pretty sure everyone making big decisions is.
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@Sean Twitter has a relatively small user base, dwarfed by other platforms. It is quite literally the “water cooler” for journalism, which is what I like about it. I can interact with a writer whose book I’m reading, which is pretty exciting.
But I doubt the big decision makers will be there for long. In addition to the deleterious effects it has on your view of the world and therefore the quality (if not genre as I joked) of writing you’re doing, it does come with quite a lot of liability as the article illustrates.
I personally always feel like I’m playing with fire when I tweet anything. In the long run, I don’t see social media in its current incarnation as sustainable for a number of reasons so the problem will likely improve.
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@Kevin I got off Twitter when I and others following a particular organization were accused of bigotry. I wasn’t following it because I agreed with the organization, I wanted to keep up with its activities and positions because I was opposed to them. But apparently “following” had become equated with “supporting”.
So yes, you are playing with fire.
1
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Instant "reality" curated by each and everyone of us. Pure subjectivity available at a whim. The nihilism of today, only limited by the norms worn by new levels of sensation blasted against our senses until it all seems the same, like a television screen's projection of reality.
Twitter.
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Most people are not on Twitter. The fact that reporters spend so much time on Twitter almost certainly contributes to most Americans' feelings of alienation from an insular media.
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@Jeff
I'm not on twitter, but I do not feel alienated from media, nor do I think they're insular. Knowing there are conversations happening that I am not exposed to does not give me FOMO. For one thing, I'm just not interested in most of those convos, or in reading stories parsed into bite sized tweets, or in having my phone endlessly bombarded with cheap thoughts. I can wait until a story / opinion / reporting is thought through thoroughly enough to warrant an actual news article.
And like you, I think (perhaps inaccurately) that I am pretty representative of a good sized chunk of other people. Unlike you I wouldn't characterize it as "most Americans" though. Other than having some connection to America, I doubt there is any one unifying thing about "most" Americans at all anymore.
But anyway. I think the point is that newsmedia can't both expect writers to be active in the twitter world *for their work* and also never need the protection of their employer there.
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@Jeff There are 68 million monthly active Twitter users in the US, and 262 other international users. 0.2% of Americans are active Twitter users. Who knows how many of them have multiple accounts?
https://www.omnicoreagency.com/twitter-statistics/
Since such a small percent of the US population uses Twitter, I don't understand why any newsroom would like, encourage, or require any of their employees to be a 'presence'.
I must say that I get discouraged at 'news' reporting that is little more than screen shots of things people said on Twitter.
I guess knowing what Dotard J. Trump blasted out on Twitter is news, since he no longer has meetings with the press, and this is his preferred method of communication. I would just appreciate an article about it, without the graphics. And why would anybody reporting these things have to have their own account?
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@Jeff
Never had any use for Twitter. Even more so now...
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Don't understand the point of/reason for the tweet. Twitter might warrant its storms when some news breaks (though I think it's relatively worthless since I'd rather wait and hear full, substantiated reports).
Nevertheless, if the use of it is just for people to "keep their oar in" (to show they're paying attention), then that's their lookout.
But--and I am not a fan or particularly familiar with Bryant or basketball--right after a tragic death, it seems shoddy to bring up the assault story when it's been adjudicated, settled, and he admitted his responsibility. Bad judgment on the Tweeter's part, and seemingly egocentric.
Twitter may be the Wild West of media, but I suppose that depends on the "tweeter." "National Enquirer" is the WW of journalism, but that doesn't mean the newspaper medium is.
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@cmk
The tweet was offering balance for the over-the-top tributes that were ignoring a big part of Bryant's legacy.
She was doing her job.
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@Hmmm Oh, c'mon. It's not up to those who are not grieved about a death to tell others who are that their reactions are "over the top." Bryant's life and legacy were sure to be covered (and have been) in obituaries and think pieces--there was no danger that this incident in his life would not be brought up.
The whole point of Twitter is IMMEDIATE so tends toward THE MOMENT. Everyone knows it's a volatile medium, and it's hard to believe that the journalist wasn't being purposely provocative. I can't regard this journalist as pure in motive as "justice with her shining sword."
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Perhaps it was bad judgement. But that’s no excuse for people to threaten the woman and her family so much that she has to leave her home.
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Twitter is not news. In fact, it's the opposite of what news is supposed to be: Fact-based, level-headed analysis of important issues that affect this country and the world.
I don't understand why journalists are involved in Twitter at all, especially given that columnists like Mr. Warzel continually point out how Twitter is corrupting public discourse.
Twitter is fine to use as an investigative source. But if journalists continue to be addicted to using it, I'm afraid it's going to eventually destroy journalism.
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@Scott I would have to agree. I really wish that people in the news business would realize that the Twittersphere is far too insular, and only represents a subset of a subset of internet users.
I get that Twitter can be a source of quick information, but using it as a continual place of engagement with others is just toxic, in my opinion. I see Twitter for what its good for, a platform for getting quick bytes of information on what's going on in a particular place, at a particular time, but only seek it out when I have a reason to... not to just hang out in.
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@Scott : They're not addicted to it. Rather, many newsrooms now require that every reporter make a certain number of posts per workday (typically, tweeting a story that s/he has written plus commenting on some current event).
I hate social media, but you need to understand that newspapers are in desperate need of advertisers and of readers who pay for content, and reaching people via social media is one way to drive eyes to the paper's website, which in turn can enable the paper to raise its ad rates (or at least draw advertisers).
Newsrooms were assaulted, quickly by the rise of the Internet -- too quickly to figure out, fast, how to respond -- and then came the Great Recession, which hammered the remaining nails in the coffin for many. A lot of newspapers have gone out of business, and those that still exist have cut staff by as much as 50%.
Democracy won't survive without a free press, and the free press won't survive without readers who are willing to pay for content -- so please see the situation as it is, and please don't make unkind and inaccurate statements such as "Reporters are addicted to social media." Reporters are far too busy reporting, and reading background materials, to engage in mindless nonsense. I know -- I worked in newsrooms for 15+ years, until the Great Recession ate my job.
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@Scott Newsrooms being gutted by corporate raiders, declining ad revenue and readers who feel entitled to never pay a cent for news will destroy journalism far faster than Twitter ever will.
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In addition to the "culture wars", I think we need to discuss the media's penchant for defending their own.
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Mr. Wolfe, since the theme of Mr. Warzel's article is that news organizations are *not* adequately protecting their own, and the Post clearly did not do so in this instance, I'm not sure why you feel there is an unwarranted penchant for the opposite.
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@Bill Wolfe
Let us also remember that they are out there on the front lines, with publicly available personalities and email addresses, at a time when our culture is more fractured and divided and certainly less civil, and even our president calls for violence against people at his rallies: "Rough her/him up, I'll pay your legal fees," etc.
Remember, too, that one of Trump's followers went to an Annapolis newsroom and shot and killed several journalists.
As you observed, you are writing this comment on a defence piece of a journalist by a journalist publicised by a major newspaper/organisation.
Never mind the "culture war." When did it become legal to e-mail threats to journalists? It's been a long time since I took a course on criminal law, but I believe that in most, if not all, jurisdictions, making threats constitutes "assault." If those threats are bad enough to make Ms. Sonmez fear for her life, I'd like to know what law enforcement authorities are doing about it.
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@lydgate
Especially when the perps signed what appeared to have been their real names.
Anonymous threats are harder to track down, but are almost never indicative of real violence. In contrast to mass shooters who have a different psychology (no particular enemy in mind, but a desire to make a name for themselves), perps of real violence against individuals almost never signal in advance. Those who make these threats are just blowing off steam, on line rather than in a bar.
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@Jonathan Katz
But how are recipients of violent threats to know who is just venting and who means business? They can't, and that's why threatening bodily harm is a crime, whether or not the person making the threats was serious.
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@lydgate if those threats were to a high status individual, law enforcement would track the aggressors and arrest them. They have the means to do so.
You can count on law enforcement to do exactly nothing to help you when you don't have high status.
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The one that needs to be suspended is the manager who suspended Ms Sonmez. If management does not have the integrity to back up their employees, they will end up with
a news room of milquetoasts. I am sure that Ms Sonmez got the message to be careful and to watch her back because the Post will betray her. Her tweet not only did not violate any reasonable policy, it could be argued that she was doing exactly what a journalist should be doing, pointing out Bryant's questionable history while the plethora of laudatory posts were coming in. Nobody is perfect, certainly not Mr. Bryant in his youth, although based on reports he seemed have grown into an admirable man. I'm glad I don't work for the Post where I would have to constantly be on guard. In a week that includes the Mary Louise Kelly / Mike Pompeo dustup and the Jeff Bezos / Saudi phone hack controversy, I have to ask which side the Washington Post management is on.
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@Condelucanor It was a tacky and mean-spirited move. The rape situation was NEVER hidden, completely covered (as well it should have been), but it did not completely define his life, nor who he was. While the bodies were still in the wreckage, what was the point of tweeting that story? To make people like him less. IT was a dark chapter in his life, and that can't be taken away, but the actions of this 'journalist' were uncalled for. That said, all threatening her life should be jailed.
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The point of the tweet was to balance the uncritical adulation being promoted by the media.
Celebrity worship is relentlessly ground into the population from all sides.
A little perspective on a person’s life brings them down to earth, and separates those who are self-delusional from thosr who actually care about that person as a less than perfect human being.
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@DM The deification of Kobe Bryant sent a powerful message to sexual assault survivors that they will never have as much value to society as a man who was good at playing basketball. The point was to tell those survivors that they were seen and that at least one reporter didn’t forget what he did.
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I realize the author is a huge fan of the platform. So tangled it is, says Yoda, that Twitter is the Gordian knot of social media that cannot easily be untied.
Except ... it is so much easier to cut than the original, by getting off it, and staying off.
Now I realize an old fogey like me doesn't realize how important it is for reasons, and how nowadays reporters need to have a well-liked Twitter presence so that something. Or maybe not. I realize, as well, that a raft of Pulitzer prizes is waiting for the well-Twittered reporter. Or maybe not.
Finally, I realize that no reporter worth their salt can nowadays barely breathe, let alone report, without immersion in the electronic glitter of our age.
Or maybe not.
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Two points:
1. The WaPo editors’ initial response (suspending the reporter) was chickensh__; and
2. Remember that Twitter is primarily a thing for media and entertainment folk. Most people have very little interaction with it. While Twitter things can reverberate in the media/entertainment segment, their impact elsewhere is trivial, so don’t overestimate the impact of anything there. Trimp’s twitblasts are an exception to that but, then again, he came out of the entertainment segment and he’s just using it to score points.
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@J P
Felicia's Twitter post of an article discussing Kobe's rape charges while people are still actively mourning is not illegal not in violation of wapo standards but is universally recognized as deliberately provocative.
In fact, she has a long history of deliberately provocative opinions and actions that has become her "brand" more or less. Which, ok I guess. You do you.
But like we all tell all the other right wing provocateurs who have received their death threats and complained about it....Somnez has freedom of speech but not the freedom from the consequences of that speech whether personal or professional.
300 coworkers may have saved her job yesterday but she shouldn't be surprised if her "brand" of cancel culture provocateur becomes more of a liability than an asset at some point in the near future and she finds herself unemployed.
Histrionics become very distracting for the public and the corner office. Quickly.
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@J P The WaPo reporter stuck her finger in the eye of many people and she did so with an agenda and an axe to grind.
Hit the link to the WaPo story and then the link in the WaPo story to the reporter's prior sexual assault allegation.
Then reconsider.
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