Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery saw his work in Ferguson, Mo., mocked Sunday by one of his own colleagues.
While reporting on a suspect who is believed to have shot two Ferguson police officers during an otherwise peaceful protest, Lowery wrote on Twitter that he had asked four “protest regulars” if they knew the suspect, who was identified as Jeffrey Williams.
“[I] asked four protest regulars if they’ve ever seen/met Jeffrey Williams,” Lowery tweeted. “Their text responses: ‘No,’ ‘Hell no,’ ‘Nope. No,’ ‘Never.”
Like many of Lowery’s thoughts on Twitter, this one attracted negative attention from conservative bloggers, who note that the young reporter frequently accuses critics of racism and say his clear support for anti-police protesters makes it unlikely he is willing to cover the situation in Ferguson objectively.
But it also drew a raspberry from Charles Lane, an editorial writer at the Post.
“I dunno, Wes,” Lane replied to Lowery in an apparently sarcastic tweet. “What’s the usual answer to the question: ‘You know that guy who’s busted for shooting a cop?'”
As noted by the Washington Examiner last week, Lowery’s racial and political tweets have caused grumbling among Post colleagues. But Lane’s jibe was a rare public rebuke from a co-worker — albeit one who works in the editorial pages. (Like many surviving newspapers, the Post still maintains a putative division between its news reporting side and its opinion side.)
Lowery replied that if the suspect had been a “regular” at protests — the protests are part of ongoing unrest in the community — one of the “hundreds of reporters” covering Ferguson would have spoken to him at some point.
Ferguson officials believe the shooting may have been retaliation after a Department of Justice report that claimed local police disproportionately select minorities for enforcement. Accused shooter Williams has told police, however, that he never intended to target police.
Lowery, who is mixed race (though he identifies as black), regularly shares his opinions on race-related controversies through social media, even as he continues to report on Ferguson’s racially charged atmosphere.
