Hayden Donnell talks to Karyn about a talkback host who hit legal hurdles - and then let the dogs in (and out); a WaPo staffer speaking ill of the late Kobe Bryant; a Buzzfeed pioneer joining the MSM - and coronavirus coverage goes bats.
Newshub zeroes in on a woman eating a bat. Photo: scre
The Washington Post’s newsroom revolts
Photo: AFP / Getty Images
When Kobe Bryant died on Monday, there was an immediate outpouring of grief on social media.
Many people posted tributes and laments. Washington Post political reporter Felicia Sonmez had a different read. She tweeted a link to a 2016 Daily Beast story detailing a credible rape allegation against the NBA legend.
Thousands of people blasted Sonmez for raising the allegations. Some threatened to harm her.
She raised the threats with her bosses, hoping they’d provide some protection or support. Instead she was told to delete her tweet or face disciplinary action.
Washington Post editor Marty Baron sent her a message saying she was “hurting the institution” and showing a “lack of judgement”. Even after she deleted the tweet, Sonmez was suspended from her job.
That decision sparked a revolt in the Washington Post newsroom. Its newsroom guild released a letter signed by more than 200 reporters, including several Pulitzer winners, opposing the suspension.
The Post’s media columnist, Eric Wemple, penned a column criticising the paper for what he called a “misguided” decision.
In it, he highlighted the paper’s social media policy, which only states that reporters must only link to factually accurate stories. No-one has claimed the Daily Beast story on Bryant is inaccurate.
This afternoon, the paper put out a statement reversing the suspension. “After conducting an internal review, we have determined that, while we consider Felicia’s tweets ill-timed, she was not in clear and direct violation of our social media policy,” it said.
The Guild welcomed the move, but said it was disappointed the paper had not apologised for its actions. Sonmez herself released a statement saying Post employees deserve to hear directly from Baron on its handling of the matter.
Buzzfeed founder heads to The New York Times
The founder of Buzzfeed News, Ben Smith, is going to the New York Times to be a media columnist.
It's been an incredible 8 years @BuzzFeedNews. Here's the note I just sent to our staff. pic.twitter.com/MawNsWd6V0
— Ben Smith (@BuzzFeedBen) January 28, 2020
When he got to Buzzfeed, it was mainly known for quizzes like ‘What kind of dog are you?’ He built the site into a respected news provider essentially from scratch.
Several of Smith's current and former employees have offered tributes to his work, and commended the Times on its hire. Former Buzzfeed politics reporter Jim Waterson took the opportunity to contrast Smith's style with Baron's, pointing out that the former always supported his reporters in public.
Talk host backs away from threat to out complainant
Talk station MagicTalk is in a desperate quest for ratings.
Hosts scramble to find provocative things to say in a bid to wrest listeners away from rival Newstalk ZB.
The station’s afternoon presenter often provokes people in advance and then uses the conflict as fodder for his show.
The Black Cap cricketer Jimmy Neesham was a recent target after he tweeted his frustration over Plunket’s recent interview with Green Party co-leader James Shaw.
This week Sean Plunket tweeted this:
"This is an open invitation to the woman at the center of the unproven allegations of sexual assault by a young Labour Party staffer which led to his resignation and that if the party president to contact me and explain why I shouldn’t reveal your identity"
Magic Talk's Sean Plunket and his dog pax in the studio. Photo: screenshot / MagicTalk
Plunket was inundated with messages telling him threatening to reveal the identity of the complainant was unethical - and possibly even illegal.
The following day, he said he'd consulted with Mediaworks' lawyers and concluded it was not illegal but he would not name the woman because "the risk and reward would be marginal" and he wanted to keep his job.
Plunket then spent a full five minutes reading out on air the mean things people had said to him online.
As the Stuff journalist Philip Matthews noted, he was complaining about getting the attention he’d sought.
Later he moved on to discussing dick pics with his callers - and trying to locate his dog Pax who he had introduced as his new co-host.
Newshub’s bat backflip
Photo: screenshot /Newshub
On Thursday, Newshub posted a story about what it called “sickening” footage of a woman eating a bat in Wuhan.
The video was released at the same time as there were concerns the coronavirus may have been transmitted from humans eating animals sold in the Wuhan food market, the story said.
Today it posted a story calling out the racism of the people blaming the woman for coronavirus.
"In an opinion piece for Foreign Policy, senior editor James Palmer took aim at the "thousands" of Twitter users creating memes about the video.
Palmer said that people were blaming the epidemic on supposedly "dirty" Chinese eating habits."
Photo: screenshot /Newshub
Who was practicing this mysterious racism? Could media organisations calling the woman’s actions sickening be implicated . . ?
By the way, it turned out the woman in the video ate the bat during a tour of Palau, Micronesia - where it is a delicacy - four years ago.
Newshub's original "sickening" story now acknowledges that like this:
"This article was amended on January 29 to show the bat was not eaten in the city of Wuhan, but in a market in Palau in 2016."
