One of the big news stories of the past 24 hours has been Swiss soccer player Michel Morganella’s racist tweet toward the rival South Korean team. Here is a screenshot of the tweet:
For those who don’t speak French, that roughly translates to the following:
“Fuck all Koreans, go burn yourselves. Hahahaha, retards!”
I think we can all agree that tweet is horrible, even by racist tweet standards. Personally I would consider this more offensive to the mentally handicapped than to South Koreans, but whatever. We need to talk about the real issue. Every news outlet is reporting this story, yet 95% of the articles don’t include the tweet itself. Some stories allude to the nature of the tweet, or include brief excerpts, but very few include the actual item. You can’t tell us that someone said something racist, then not tell us what they said. That’s some middle school shit. “I have a secret… but I’m not going to tell you what it is!” I’d like to deliver a clear message to all news outlets. Quoting someone else’s racist statement doesn’t make you a racist. It makes you a journalist. You are no longer the only game in town, so if you only feel like reporting half of a story because the other half offends your delicate sensibilities, we’ll just go somewhere else. And that’s the problem with journalism today. Not enough racism.
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