The executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette defended the paper’s controversial choice to bar a black reporter from covering protests about racial injustice and police brutality that rocked the nation after the death of George Floyd.
The reporter, Alexis Johnson, was sidelined after concerns of objectivity rose from her social media use.
The Gazette’s executive editor, Keith Burris, addressed what he considered disinformation that spread about the barring of reporters in a front-page essay on Wednesday, calling the motive for the paper’s decision “purely journalistic” and not based on race.
“No one was taken off the protest story because of race,” Burris writes. “One person was not assigned a story because of the suggestion of bias. A tweet was issued and a dialogue followed that editors felt was strong commentary — opinion — on a story the reporter was only supposed to report. This person was not taken off a story, but was never on it. And this person does not cover race or protests. There is no such beat. This person covers social media, normally. When other journalists repeated the tweet, hence also opining, they also were disqualified from reporting on the protests — almost all of them (over 80) were white.”
Johnson was barred after tweeting a photo of a mess made outside of a Kenny Chesney concert and comparing it to the response people had about the destruction caused by recent protests.
“Horrifying scenes and aftermath from selfish LOOTERS who don’t care about this city!!!!! …. oh wait sorry. No, these are pictures from a Kenny Chesney concert tailgate. Whoops,” Johnson said.
Horrifying scenes and aftermath from selfish LOOTERS who don’t care about this city!!!!!
…. oh wait sorry. No, these are pictures from a Kenny Chesney concert tailgate. Whoops. pic.twitter.com/lKRNrBsltU
— Alexis Johnson (@alexisjreports) May 31, 2020
A letter sent to members of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, obtained by the Pittsburgh City Paper, said executives at the paper told her the tweet showed “bias.”
“It came to the attention of the powers that be, who on Monday confronted her in a conference call, told her she showed bias and as such, could no longer cover anything related to the protests of the police murder of George Floyd and the systemic racism that for too long has been a dirty segment of our national fabric,” the letter read.
Burris did not address a disparity in not barring a white reporter who had also tweeted a controversial description of a man accused of looting, according to a report by NPR.
The reporter, 28-year-old Joshua Axelrod, was rebuked by editors for the tweet and told NPR he asked if the now-deleted tweet would impact his assignments. He was told it wouldn’t and subsequently wrote about an issue involving protests the next day.
The paper’s union noted the disparity with editors, and it later told Axelrod he would also be dropped from covering protests. Axelrod said he believes he made a journalistic mistake but that Johnson did not.
Burris called accusations of racism made against the Gazette the product of a “propaganda campaign” and said that no one can fairly call its decision racist.
“What our editors did do was remind colleagues of a longstanding canon of journalism ethics: When you announce an opinion about a person or story you are reporting on, you compromise your reporting,” Burris said. “And your editor may take you off the story. This is a long-held tradition at this newspaper and at every good newspaper. You can disagree with that ethic, or dismiss it as passe. But you cannot, fairly, call it racism.”
