A few tweets from news organizations have garnered controversy in recent days – the Associated Press on Amal Clooney, the Wall Street Journal on Chinese president Xi Jinping and Salon on Nicki Miaj.
The Associated Press tweeted Aug. 29 about Amal Clooney, the human rights lawyer who was representing Mohamed Fahmy in Egypt. But, the AP tweet identified her as “actor’s wife.” Journalist Zeynep Tufekci called out the tweet, editing it to replace “actor’s wife” with “human rights lawyer.”
!!! Fixed it for you @AP. Let me know if you need an introduction to the 21st century. https://t.co/Zj5K0ocvto pic.twitter.com/tgI27xGWhg
— Zeynep Tufekci (@zeynep) August 29, 2015
The Wall Street Journal also deleted a tweet that referred to a “chink in his armor” about Chinese president Xi Jinping.
Back in 2012, ESPN fired an editor for a headline using “Chink in the Armor” in a headline about basketball player Jeremy Lin, the Washington Post‘s Erik Wemple reminded.
The WSJ deleted its tweet, and posted another saying it didn’t mean to offend.
We recently removed a tweet on our Xi Jinping article because a common idiom used might be seen as a slur. No offense was intended.
— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) August 31, 2015
Salon tweeted Aug. 31 about Nicki Minaj’s MTV Video Music Awards comments to Miley Cyrus, writing “The look on Miley’s face during Nicki Minaj’s savage, expletive-laden rant says it all,” Mediaite reported.
During an acceptance speech, Minaj had said “And now back to this bitch that had a lot to say about me in the press. Miley, what’s good?”
Cyrus had commented about Minaj earlier in August to the New York Times. After Minaj’s comments at the VMA’s, Cyrus responded that the media “manipulate.”
Salon deleted the tweet, replacing it with a tweet saying “the look on Miley’s face during Nicki Minaj’s raw, righteous rebuke says it all.”
The look on Miley's face during Nicki Minaj's raw, righteous rebuke says it all http://t.co/y9hLbnbZX6 pic.twitter.com/TCZ3jaaav1
— Salon.com (@Salon) August 31, 2015
Salon also apologized for its “poor choice of words.”
Earlier today we used a poor choice of words in describing Nicki Minaj's VMA acceptance speech. We apologize to Ms. Minaj and our readers
— Salon.com (@Salon) August 31, 2015
