Before the University of Maryland club ‘Terps for Trump’ had a proper chance to promote their upcoming event with Milo Yiannopoulos, the school’s newspaper, The Diamondback, published a hit piece to slander the student organization and Yiannopoulos himself.
First published as “Terps For Trump to host Milo Yiannopoulos in October,” the title of the article has since been changed to “Twitter banned Milo Yiannopoulos for racist tweets. Terps for Trump will host him at UMD.” The article claims Yiannopoulos made “a series of racist tweets” towards Ghostbusters actress Leslie Jones, and implies Terps for Trump are wrong to give him a platform.
Jacob Penrod has launched a petition directed towards UMD President Wallace Loh, Chief Diversity Officer Kumea Shorter-Gooden, and Vice President for Student Affairs Linda Clement to shut down the event. Although the petition is only reaching a fraction of the 30,000 student body, a similarly weak petition managed to change the name of the school’s flagship stadium.
Student journalist Kimberly Escobar, a “diversity writer” who aspires “to become the Latina version of Katie Couric,” cited a Washington Post article to support her narrative. However, the article in question does not provide any specifics that Yiannopoulos is a “racist,” but rather displays a tweet from Jones’ detractors comparing her to a gorilla. Despite this inaccuracy, DBK refuses to retract the claims. An editor’s note on the article says, “The Diamondback does not retract factually correct articles.”
“[Yiannopoulos is] best known for getting kicked off Twitter for mobilizing an online attack against Leslie Jones,” editor Danielle Ohl said in a tweet linking to the biased article.
The article lacks credibility as it does context. The Ghostbuster remake is one of the most disliked movie trailers in YouTube history and is one of the top 25 most disliked videos overall, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The feminist propaganda flick has accumulated millions of viewers and over 1 million downvotes on YouTube. With much animosity towards the remake, it was inevitable that internet trolls would try to contact the stars themselves. Before the film’s theatrical release and Yiannopoulos’s movie review, trolls were and still are hurling insults at Jones and the movie’s director, Paul Feig, who called critics, “assholes.”
Although Jones was not the only Ghostbuster to receive hateful comments, she was the only one who interacted with the trolls.
Twitter co-creator and CEO Jack Dorsey had previous run-ins with Yiannopoulos when his team unverified his Twitter account or when the tech editor lobbied the White House regarding Twitter’s restrictiveness on free speech. Dorsey invited Jones into a private direct message conversation. Shortly afterward the internet’s most powerful super-villain was removed from the site permanently due to inciting harassment to an already harassed superstar.
DBK has been framing biased articles in the recent years that are more fitting for a liberal blog than a news outlet. In response to an editorial criticizing Black Live Matter, Ohl, and the editorial board said they have added preventive measures to prevent future “inaccuracies,” and have criticized their now terminated opinion columnist, Kyle Campbell. The liberal paper has since published three guest columns bashing their former employee.
Full disclosure: I am a member of the Maryland Federation of College Republicans, and friends with some of the Terps for Trump. I have a networking relationship with Breitbart writers. I am also a former general assignment writer for The Diamondback.
