POLITICS F the Des Moines Register

His firing means little in all of this. He's a scapegoat. That much is definitely true.

 

He held the press conference because they were printing it.

 

Well I think they fired him because of the content of his old tweets/posts.

 

Do you think they would have fired him if they had happened upon them randomly?

 

If they became public.

But the current spotlight on past tweets/posts meant that their hand was particularly forced.

 

I'll take that as a no.

 

That doesn’t mean he was a scapegoat.

I just think he became unemployable given the ‘standard’ they were spouting. If he hadn’t had those posts he wouldn’t have been fired, IMO.

 

I disagree. The peasants were angry. They offered the writer. I don't recall reading anywhere that they were not going to include the information on the tweets or that it was a mistake to do so. You are correct concerning his being unemployable based on the position they decided to take, but sharing that position and announcing his firing were simultaneous releases.

 

They admitted the inclusion of the beer guys tweets was an editorial discussion/decision.

 

Then fired the writer without mentioning any other actions.

 

My guess is they didn’t want to drag him further through the mud. Just let him go if you don’t think his actions meet your standards. I’d be surprised if they fired him because he included the tweets. If they hadn’t admitted it was an editorial decision, maybe.

 

My guess is the peasants were getting their torches and pitchforks ready, so they tossed out the reporter to the savages.

 

What would like to have seen happen?

 

Admit outright that including the information was irrelevant instead of blaming the guy for going to the television station. I don't really care that the reporter was fired, and obviously he was fired over the outcry rather than anything else.

 

This is accurate and correct. There is nothing else to it.

 

This. His tweets were a nice excuse to fire someone unpopular

 

In response to being called a tool you lived up to the name more than I could have imagined. Impressive. That second part there doesn’t even make sense but yeah I’d be happy to do contribute to that cause. I couldn’t give a [uck fay] what that guy posted on social media as a high schooler. He’s not a politician or a public figure. He did a good deed and if he’s actually an ass I don’t care, it doesn’t cancel out the good deed and it’s not newsworthy.

Kind of like how if I learned you had contributed a great deal of your time or money to a noble cause in Knoxville my first thought would be “good on Dooz, he must be good people”, not “oh hey let me go scour the internet to see if this tool ever said something I can get people to rail him over”.