Tweet as source blurs line between journalism and social media noise

In the Jan. 24 article, “Allegation of ‘racially charged’ comment by official toward Iowa City High basketball coach during Monday night game,” a link to a “video of the altercation” was included in the online edition. When a reader clicked on the link, they were directed to an unofficial Twitter account associated with another Iowa City High School. The “altercation” video’s caption was highly derogatory toward City High, as is typical of a rival high school’s Barstool Sports-type account. The replies to the tweet included hateful personal attacks on an individual City High player, as well as pejorative comments about the basketball team, coaching staff, and school as a whole. Additional replies to the tweet alluded to instances, unrelated to the game, that portrayed the community of Fairfield negatively.

I am disappointed that The Gazette would deem an anonymous, high school, Barstool Sports-type Twitter account an appropriate source to embed in a news article. I recognize this is common practice as Twitter is a public forum, but in this case the context in which the video was presented was unnecessarily inflammatory. Shouldn’t the newspaper want to distinguish itself from social media by adhering to journalistic ethics (e.g., objectivity, respect, fairness, protection of privacy, etc.)? Was that the only way to obtain the video, or simply the easiest? As a newer subscriber to The Gazette, I was disheartened.

Kerry Driscoll

Iowa City