
Reporter Fired in the 'Busch Light Guy' Scandal Feels 'Abandoned' by Paper - jawns
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/des-moines-register-iowa-reporter-fired-aaron-calvin-carson
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depressedpanda
The real villain here is outrage culture and rampant unchecked political
correctness. It's our modern day version of the witch hunts of yore.

People make mistakes, and nobody is perfect. That doesn't mean that they are
evil or despicable and deserve to be burned at the proverbial stake.

Things are rarely black and white. Why is it so hard to acknowledge that fact?

~~~
pochamago
I still don't really have much pity for the reporter. Live by the sword, die
by the sword

~~~
folkhack
I've been thinking all morning what I want to say to this and ya beat me to
it.

This reporter was the one to dig up the "dirt" on Carson. It's 100% false that
the DSM register pushed him to do this through "editorial practice", although
the paper did allow it through so they're as much to blame on this as he is.
I've been following this closely and I really think Aaron has a huge chunk of
responsibility in this matter.

If you put someone under a microscope don't be surprised when the same happens
to you - play stupid games win stupid prizes.

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gmoore
Anheuser-Busch and Venmo missed a huge opportunity. What they should have said
is "this is exactly what people should do - apologize for their youthful
transgressions - move on and raise $1M for charity - we support him"

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hdfbdtbcdg
Maybe we should all stop digging around in social media to find things people
said and quote them out of context...

~~~
pxue
Maybe social media should really sit down and think about their "growth" above
all else model.

How about twitter use their $$ and do some machine learning and start warning
me about risky tweets.

~~~
folkhack
That wouldn't do them well for engagement. They want this sort of stuff to
happen, and we all have to admit to ourselves that when we join these
platforms that WE are the product.

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droithomme
Based on the paper's own statement about the situation, it was the paper's
management that told him to do this search, and when he found posts made as a
minor, he presented them to the paper's management who made the decision that
the posts were relevant and ordered the reporter to publish the posts despite
his own misgivings about it. They then pilloried him when it all blew up in
their faces, and sacrificed him, but it was management that steered the entire
affair and made the decision to publish.

For some reason the management is reluctant to fire themselves for their
shameful and unprofessional behavior, which is the appropriate action at this
point. It's distasteful that management is now denying their own culpability
and setting out a scape-goat given they not not only previously admitted their
culpability, but self-righteously bragged about it in an open letter to
subscribers.

Any journalists considering working for this paper in the future will likely
carefully consider the risk of working for someone who orders you to to
unethical things, then when that backfires, destroys your entire professional
career in order to protect their own bad decisions from themselves.

~~~
xtiansimon
> “...it was the paper’s management ... who made the decision the posts were
> relevant and ordered the reporter to publish...”

That is not what the article says happened:

>> “Calvin said his editors told him to ask King about the tweets, so he did.
[...] In writing his profile, Calvin said he decided to include just a ‘brief
mention of these tweets...’.“

~~~
droithomme
I'm going by actual original sources, which I named: the paper's official
initial statement written by Senior Editor Carol Hunter about what happened
and the timeline. Not the yellow journalism and factually incorrect Buzz Feed
summary OP gave and which you quoted, and were fooled by.

It's just as I summarized. The reporter approached management. A discussion
between editors ensued. And "Register editors" made the decision to include
the angle about the posts as a minor, claiming that the posts were relevant
and should be disclosed in the article for the benefit of anyone who has
"donated money to King's cause or were planning to do so". Then then boldly
summarized and justified their decision as "rooted in what we perceive as the
public good".

~~~
xtiansimon
Please provide a link, or bibliographic reference.

------
froindt
I was thinking about how far back should you _really_ have to explain
yourself. I think half your age plus 7 might work alright. [1] In this case,
he would have had to explain if he tweeted such things past age 19. I want to
emphasize this is only for simple word posts. If you ever post about actually
harming someone or animals, the standard may need to be different.

For everyone who doesn't live in Iowa, how big of a story is this? Do you know
people without Iowa connections who have donated? Ever since it all started,
it's been a constant stream in my Facebook feed, often consisting of people
commenting who haven't read the story.

And yes, Busch Light is as popular as people are making it seem. An old
roommate literally had a fridge full after Hy-Vee, the Iowa-based grocery
store, had a semi sale for various meats and Busch Light.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_disparity_in_sexual_rela...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_disparity_in_sexual_relationships#The_%22half-
your-age-plus-seven%22_rule)

~~~
folkhack
I like the notion, but I don't think there's a simple "age / 2 + 7" rule that
applies here as I think this sort of stuff should be dealt with on a case-by-
case basis.

I think it's all about personal responsibility for everyone involved. Content
creator, and audience. I think that creators (even just posting comments) have
responsibility to keep their noses clean or suffer potential consequences, and
I think that the audience has a responsibility to think about circumstances
like this objectively.

There was social support for Carson from every type of person you can imagine.
Young, old, left, right, every race, etc. When presented with the facts,
everyone jumped on Carson's side. We saw it for what it was: a character
assassination that had nothing to do with the actual story at-hand. Aaron, and
the DSM Register alike ("content creators"), wanted the controversy or they
wouldn't be digging that far back on someone and/or including something this
irrelevant in their story. When you operate this way it's bound to backfire at
some point. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

The "audience" looked at this and almost unanimously decided that the DSM
Register and Aaron's actions were reprehensible. These entities took a cheap
shot at someone who is objectively putting good into this world and paid a
real price in subscriber numbers and employment. I don't have any pity for
either of them.

