Des Moines Register reporter targeted man who raised $1 million for children's hospital
Journalist goes after charitable man; reaction from The Hill media reporter Joe Concha.
The Des Moines Register reporter who was fired amid the blowback he received for his piece on an Iowa philanthropist claimed he lost his job "unfairly" and suggested he wasn't responsible for the controversy that unfolded.
Aaron Calvin was formerly a trending-news reporter for Iowa's biggest paper when he was writing a profile on 24-year-old Carson King, who became a viral sensation this past September after he was seen holding a sign asking for donations so he could buy beer. Due to the widespread attention he received, King ended up raising over $3 million for a children's hospital. However, the profile sparked backlash after Calvin dug up offensive tweets King wrote back in high school. The Register later fired Calvin after critics dug up his own tweets deemed offensive.
In a new op-ed published in the Columbia Journal Review, Calvin offered what he said "really happened" during the ordeal.
Calvin recalled his positive interactions with King and reiterated how his editors had asked him to do a background check on the philanthropist.
"I believe this was the right thing to do. Performing background checks on public figures is part of a journalist’s responsibility. If I had found the tweets, others would, too," Calvin wrote. "I approached King with an understanding that what you tweet in high school is not necessarily representative of your beliefs as an adult, and he duly apologized."
Calvin explained that the inclusion of the tweets was meant to prove King's "growth, maturity, and compassion—not an accusatory, 'gotcha' moment."
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"When I asked King about his tweets, I tried to communicate that I was not trying to bring him harm," he said. "It’s clear to me now, though, that he was worried about personal blowback. As is common in the world of celebrity PR, he moved to get ahead of the details that would be revealed in the profile."
Before Calvin's piece was published, King held a televised news conference during which he apologized for his old tweets; the revelation led Anheuser-Busch to sever ties with King's fundraising campaign. However, the ex-reporter suggested that King's preemptive news conference fueled the uproar.
"I don’t believe that King set out to implicate me, but because he preempted my forthcoming profile, people believed that I intended to impugn his character," Calvin continued. "Immediately after he released his statement, angry messages began to come in to the Register’s Facebook page. The messages demanded that the identity of the journalist who had found King’s tweets be revealed, and threatened the reporter’s life and the lives of Register staff."
Calvin wrote, "The Register decided to publish my profile that night, and King tweeted that he bore the paper no ill will, but it was too late. The narrative that a Register reporter was trying to discredit Carson King had already been set in motion."
The 27-year-old writer addressed his own tweets that ultimately got him fired as they violated the Register's employee ethical standards, admitting they were a mistake. Still, he wrote that he regretted issuing an apology that his employer requested.
"They were words I did not believe—I was never in the business of holding others to any kind of a moral standard," Calvin wrote. "As I told King, I don’t think it is fair to use someone’s old tweets to make blanket assaults on their character."
Despite his own career derailment, Calvin reiterated that he did not believe "cancel culture" existed, something for whih his previous declaration was mocked amid the fallout.
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Calvin slammed CNN and The Washington Post, writing that the broader media "spread the false but palatable narrative established by these outlets—that I had sought to vilify King for his tweets." He also went after the Register's parent company, Gannett, for setting a "dangerous precedent" that allowed "editorial decisions to be made by public demand" and that he was "scapegoated by a corporation trying to preserve its bottom line."
"There was never any attempt to 'cancel' Carson King. In fact, his status as a folk hero has only grown," the ex-reporter wrote. "Meanwhile, I lost my job—work that I was good at and proud of... I believe I lost my job unfairly. At the same time, I firmly believe that people, especially those in power, should be held accountable for what they say and do."
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