Des Moines Register Clarifies: "Our own self-righteousness is more important than sick kids." (Satire)
Des Moines, IA - Facing immense criticism for surfacing 7 year-old tweets from football fan Carson King after he successfully raised over $1.3 million for a children's hospital, the Des Moines Register issued a press release on its website and social media channels defending their actions. You can read the full press-release below:
"We deeply appreciate the generosity of King to donate the entirety of the immense sum of money he came into out of the blue to the University of Iowa's Stead Children's Hospital. However, while doing a routine background check one of our staff members came across two tweets featuring jokes made in poor taste over 7 years ago when King was 16. During an internal meeting to discuss the discovery, we had to ask ourselves: 'Is attempting to derail an incredible, spontaneous philanthropic effort that has raised over $1.3 million and counting for sick children over some primal lust for self-righteousness really worth it?' And the unanimous answer was 'Abso-f*&cking-lutely.' We wanted to send a clear message that tearing down others who are clearly much better human beings than you is a great way to compensate for your own lack of humanity. Yes, even if that means potentially halting thousands upon thousands of more dollars that could continue to be raised for sick children."
Shortly after knowledge of the tweets became public, Aaron Calvin, the journalist who conducted the background check on King had his own troubling past tweets surface online. When asked to comment on the taste of his own medicine, Calvin replied "Hey, hey, hey! You don't get to do that to me. I'm the journalist here!"
Many readers online were quick to point out the absurdity of conducting a thorough background check that involved combing through nearly a decades' worth of social media posts on someone who literally just raised vast sums of money for sick children while not subjecting their own employees to the same background check.
"Well how the hell are we supposed to get a self-righteous kick out of something one of our own employees did?" An editor for the Des Moines Register told one of our own reporters while quite literally combing through that reporter's social media past right in front of him.
"Ha! Gotcha now!" he screamed in delight. "Oh wait, you were clearly trying to say "not see" and you must have been using a speech to text software. Well maybe if we just include that small part of the caption without any context and leave out the photo people might take it the wrong way..."
At press time, the editor had made it as far as 2008 in the reporter's Twitter feed while an intern had just reached 2011 prom pictures on Facebook.
*Full Disclaimer: As an obvious piece of satire, none of these quotes are real. Duh.
"We deeply appreciate the generosity of King to donate the entirety of the immense sum of money he came into out of the blue to the University of Iowa's Stead Children's Hospital. However, while doing a routine background check one of our staff members came across two tweets featuring jokes made in poor taste over 7 years ago when King was 16. During an internal meeting to discuss the discovery, we had to ask ourselves: 'Is attempting to derail an incredible, spontaneous philanthropic effort that has raised over $1.3 million and counting for sick children over some primal lust for self-righteousness really worth it?' And the unanimous answer was 'Abso-f*&cking-lutely.' We wanted to send a clear message that tearing down others who are clearly much better human beings than you is a great way to compensate for your own lack of humanity. Yes, even if that means potentially halting thousands upon thousands of more dollars that could continue to be raised for sick children."
Shortly after knowledge of the tweets became public, Aaron Calvin, the journalist who conducted the background check on King had his own troubling past tweets surface online. When asked to comment on the taste of his own medicine, Calvin replied "Hey, hey, hey! You don't get to do that to me. I'm the journalist here!"
Many readers online were quick to point out the absurdity of conducting a thorough background check that involved combing through nearly a decades' worth of social media posts on someone who literally just raised vast sums of money for sick children while not subjecting their own employees to the same background check.
"Well how the hell are we supposed to get a self-righteous kick out of something one of our own employees did?" An editor for the Des Moines Register told one of our own reporters while quite literally combing through that reporter's social media past right in front of him.
"Ha! Gotcha now!" he screamed in delight. "Oh wait, you were clearly trying to say "not see" and you must have been using a speech to text software. Well maybe if we just include that small part of the caption without any context and leave out the photo people might take it the wrong way..."
At press time, the editor had made it as far as 2008 in the reporter's Twitter feed while an intern had just reached 2011 prom pictures on Facebook.
*Full Disclaimer: As an obvious piece of satire, none of these quotes are real. Duh.
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