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Angry Assault
2019/09

Aaron Calvin, Des Moines Register Reporter Fired For Spicy Tweets

Aaron Calvin wrote an article for the Des Moines Register spotlighting the charity of Carson King, a young man who raised and donated $1 million to a children’s hospital that was matched by Busch Light. However, Calvin’s piece also attempted to smear King by bringing up past tweets the good Samaritan made, trying to brandish him as a racist and a bigot. Why did Calvin want King canceled? Because when Carson King was 16 he made some spicy tweets. Well, it turns out that the Register journalist also made some spicy tweets, and in a karmic twist of fate, Calvin was the one who ended up getting canceled.

Fox59 is reporting that editor Carol Hunter from the Des Moines Register confirmed that Aaron Calvin is “no longer with the Register”. This was verified in an editorial Hunter penned on September 26th, 2019, where Hunter wrote…

“I want to be as transparent as possible about what we did and why, answer the questions you’ve raised and tell you what we’ve learned so far and what we’ll try to do better. For one, we’re revising our policies and practices, including those that did not uncover our own reporter’s past inappropriate social media postings. That reporter is no longer with the Register.”

This came after tweets surfaced from Calvin’s past, where he dropped some spicy comments eight years ago back in 2011.

Twitter user Reddsix resurfaced some of Calvin’s tweets after the Register was alerted about the writer’s past social media history.

It was after the resurfacing of the tweets that the Register then decided to fire Calvin.

The irony of the firing is that it comes after Calvin tried to use cancel culture in a piece published on the Des Moines Register to drag Calvin King through the mud for his own tweets he had made years prior when he was just 16.

Even though King apologized for the tweets and deleted them, he was still castigated for what happened years in the past. Busch Light even cut ties with King after the Register ran the article.

As reported by Barstool Sports, the information about King’s tweets were included in the Register article by Calvin, where it was explained…

“A routine background check of King’s social media revealed two racist jokes, one comparing black mothers to gorillas and another making light of black people killed in the holocaust. The joke tweets date back to 2012, when King was a 16-year-old high school student.

 

“When asked about the tweets, King was remorseful and thanked the Register for pointing them out, saying they made him “sick.” He has since deleted them.

 

“That’s not something that I’m proud of at all,” he told the Register during the day Tuesday.”

However, the bigger question is, what was the point of including the mention about King’s tweets in a story about him raising $1 million for charity?

The Register attempted to justify the inclusion of the information by saying that it was part of the profile, but it still didn’t go down well with normal people.

Calvin, meanwhile, ran to Buzzfeed to cry about his firing, claiming that he was being hounded by “right-wing ideologues”…

“I recognize that I’m not the first person to be doxed like this — this whole campaign was taken up by right-wing ideologues and largely driven by that force. It was just a taste of what I assume that women and journalists of color suffer all the time, but the kind of locality and regional virality of the story made it so intense.”

Maybe next time he won’t try to ruin a man’s life to score virtue signaling points.

In any case, there’s a strong sense of glee to relish from the instance of a journalist attempting to smear a good Samaritan only to be fired for his efforts.

(Thanks for the news tip Guardian EvaUnit02)

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