MSNBC Apologizes for Cheerios Tweet Hitting Right Wing (Employee Fired)

Link

(CNN) – MSNBC President Phil Griffin apologized Thursday for what he called an "offensive" network tweet, which suggested that conservatives may “hate” a Cheerios Super Bowl ad featuring a racially mixed family.

Griffin said the person responsible for the tweet was fired.

"The tweet last night was outrageous and unacceptable,” Griffin said in a written statement. “We immediately acknowledged that it was offensive and wrong, apologized, and deleted it. We have dismissed the person responsible for the tweet.”

Fired? For that? This is a new low! And I don't care who the speech "offends..." never send me near a tweeter device at work! No matter how careful I am I could get fired!

The original Tweet:

"Maybe the rightwing will hate it, but everyone else will go awww: the adorable new #Cheerios ad w/ biracial family.” The tweet included a link to an article about the commercial.

reply to post by darkbake


Likely for using the corporate account to accuse conservatives of being racist. You know because only conservatives would object to seeing an ad with a mixed race family ... haha.

This comes right after the same channel spent time making fun of the picture of Romney and his family with the adopted child making comments that were racially charged.

Why yes there are 'no' biracial cheerio right wing families

Now is there.

"Maybe the rightwing will hate it, but everyone else will go awww: the adorable new #Cheerios ad w/ biracial family.” The tweet included a link to an article about the commercial.

It's sad that people still even notice biracial families. It's not a rarity anymore

darkbake
Fired? For that? This is a new low!

Fired for stupidity and for outing MSNBC as the partisan ignorance that it is. The statement the person made was pathetically partisan and moronic. MSNBC is constantly putting that kind of crap out over their media outlets. Firing the person is MSNBC attempting to try to look like they are going to get control over their own puke machine. But the fact is that MSNBC made itself this way on purpose. They wanted to be far left and they made themselves a useless joke that no one listens to. So they got exactly what they cultivated. Firing one person isn't going to change the ignorance at MSNBC ... it's just them trying to look like they are trying to change.

Unless this person was told to make this tweet, there was an obvious lack of judgement on their part.

That being said, I don't think they should be fired for it.

All to often when someone does something stupid or silly, the fake outrage ensues and we scream "off with their heads".

Its kinda sad and we forget that we all make mistakes and must feed our families.

Isnt this all terribly old?

Biracial Cheerios Commercial Thread from June 2013

Maybe the real reason the MSNBC guy was fired is because he works for a 24 hour news service and seems to be running six months behind the news.

I see no problem with him losing his job, what did he expect would happen?
If this was something he did on his own time with his own personal account then I can see the issue but when you are on company time you play by the rules.

reply to post by sheepslayer247


I'd agree if the person in question made it with their own personal Twitter account, but they made it on MSNBC's account which makes it more like an official position of the station in question. Most companies don't like to be put in an embarrassing position by their employees.

I don't know about you, but I've had to sign a paper that puts me in a position where I can be fired if I put my employer in an embarrassing position like this employee did.

reply to post by sheepslayer247


If I were the head of a company, and some idiot decided to use the Twitter account that speaks for my company, and said person spouted out some stereotyping, unnecessarily hateful comment about ANY group of people, you bet your ass I'd fire them.

A lack of accountability for one's actions is what's wrong with this country.

ETA: The difference is that my apology would be sincere.

reply to post by darkbake


I don't think any of the progressives at MSNBC should be fired. In my humble opinion, they are stating what progressives think.

They are racists, divisive, elitists.

They should be able to say what they think and believe. Let the hatred out!

reply to post by ketsuko


Agreed, that why I said there was a lapse in judgement by this person. I just don't see why we always have to fire people when they make mistakes like this. In the end, no harm will come of this and you can guarantee this person will never do it again.

Where I work, we deal with a lot of media-types and politicians. I signed an agreement that, among many things, states I am not allowed to talk to the press or represent the company in any way unless I have permission from the GM or FB Director.

thisguyrighthere
Isnt this all terribly old?

Biracial Cheerios Commercial Thread from June 2013

Maybe the real reason the MSNBC guy was fired is because he works for a 24 hour news service and seems to be running six months behind the news.

I don't know, that's the kind that MSNBC hires, I think.

Who knows, in another 6 months MSNBC might get around to acknowledging Obama's low approval rating and the poor roll-out of Obamacare!

What nobody wants to say is that the decision to fire the guy wasn't made to save political face with conservatives regarding viewership. Conservatives don't watch msnbc. It was made so that Cheerios will agree to continue to supply ad revenue. It wasn't a noble stand against racism, rather a shallow attempt to maintain cereal sales to conservatives. In the end, its only ever about money.

reply to post by Urantia1111


It was an attempt to continue the veneer of being a serious news organization really. They've been walking themselves back quite a bit lately.

They should just come out and admit that they're really Air America live.

reply to post by beezzer


I agree, Beezer. And Ketsuko - I haven't worked for a company with a Twitter account or anything like that, so I don't have first-hand experience with how this kind of thing works. I'm glad you agree that people should have free speech on their personal Twitter accounts - that was the company account.

I wonder if the news link was an old one, too, even though it was on the front page of CNN.

Ha at least MSNBC has the decency to fire him, FOX would promote him! and probably give him his own show.

they "fired" him.

as long as "fired" means "promoted, thrown a party with cake and given a raise and new iPhone"

reply to post by howmuch4another


You're right.

They didn't fire him.

They "dismissed" him.

As in, "Okay, Elliot, you are dismissed. Well done. See you tomorrow."

reply to post by beezzer


Probably sent him over to NBC where the serious news folks go.