Free Republic

“I don’t really care what anybody thinks about me, never have, but I know a lot of people that do,” Murray said. “And for me being a black man in America, if it’s wrong I’m gonna say it’s wrong. I feel like personally, it’s on everybody to hold each other accountable. But more so, for me, if you’re white and you got white friends that feel this certain type of way or don’t understand what’s going on, it’s on you to educate them, as well as black, Hispanic, any other ethnicity.

So much for closing ranks. Perhaps Arthur Sulzberger thought that his newspaper’s rant about conservatives doing to his reporters what they do to conservatives would generate some sympathy from colleagues in the media. Instead, media critics at the Washington Post and Politico delivered the same message to the New York Times’ publisher — stop whining.The Post’s Erik Wemple wrote that Sulzberger can’t have it both ways. These are public statements of the same kind — and on the same platform — as the media likes to resurface when it suits their purposes. Despite the breathless description used by the...

A nation devoid of grace immiserates its people. When you think of the sheer vindictiveness of what happened to Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray, it takes your breath away. On the very night of his greatest career triumph, a reporter dug up his old tweets (composed when he was a young teenager), reported on the most offensive insults, and immediately and irrevocably transformed his online legacy. Now he’s not just “Kyler Murray, gifted quarterback and humble Heisman winner,” but also the man who was forced to apologize for his alleged homophobia. And for what purpose? Which cause did the reporter advance?...

This week, I did something that USA Today's executive leadership apparently hadn't done lately: I read the newspaper's "principles of ethical conduct for newsrooms." It's pretty highfalutin. The media manifesto of virtue, posted online, applies to all employees "working with any news platform, including newspapers, websites, mobile devices, video, social media channels and live story events." Whether writing online or covering breaking developments, USA Today's journalists are supposedly committed to: --Seeking and reporting the truth in a truthful way. --Serving the public interest. --Exercising fair play. --Acting with integrity. Now, let's compare the lofty rhetoric with low-blow reality. On Sunday,...

Kyler Murray won one of college football’s highest honors on Saturday as he was awarded the Heisman Trophy for his excellence as quarterback for Oklahoma, but USA Today wasn’t focused on his football accomplishments. In a report published late Saturday night, USA Today dug up several tweets and claimed that Murray had made homophobic statements on Twitter. According to the report, Murray called one of his friends a “queer” in 2012. He was 15 years old at the time of the tweet. In response to this hit from USA Today, Murray humbly apologized for the comments he had made when...