One “Bruh” Cost a Dallas Reporter Her Job
A Dallas Morning News reporter has been fired after getting familiar with Mayor Eric Johnson on Twitter. According to D Magazine, the reporter addressed Johnson as “bruh” in the tweet which was translated as offensive by the mayor and apparently, her employer too.
Meghan Mangrum, 31, was an education reporter for The Dallas Morning News. She told D Magazine this situation began when Johnson made a remark suggesting local media is only interested in reporting on bad news about the city instead of the good news, like their falling crime rates. Local news reporters clapped back at his remarks defending their work in the Twitter thread. One of those reporters was Mangrum.
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“Bruh, national news is always going to chase the trend. Cultivate relationships with quality local news partnerships,” read the now deleted tweet.
“Bruh? Have we met? - ‘Gotta love when folks let their inherent biases show. I get to be addressed as ‘bruh’ by someone who writes for my daily local paper whom I’ve never met,” tweeted in response Johnson.
Three days later, she was fired.
Read more about it from Daily Mail:
The paper’s editor, Katrice Hardy, allegedly asked her during a meeting if she would have used that word even if the mayor had not been black, to which she responded affirmatively. In the article published on Wednesday, D Magazine noted that on Twitter Mangrum had addressed various types of people using ‘bruh’, from ‘hockey fans’ to the ‘Oklahoma Department of Wildlife’.
‘I know my intent, and it was not at all about race. I use that word with my friends and when I tweet about hockey. It’s just part of my vernacular. I grew up in Central Florida,’ she told the magazine. ‘I’m a millennial.’
The day after the meeting she attended a demonstration in downtown Dallas organized by the Dallas News Guild, protesting various issues including equal pay for Spanish-speaking workers. Later that day she was told she was being fired. The reason they cited was violation the paper’s social media policy, she says, and added that she was not told which part had been breached.
I wouldn’t jump so fast to call this racist - as most Black slang has been consumed by white folks - but more so inappropriate. As a reporter, you might want to limit your use of “bruh” to your friends and cousins, not the mayor. However, the mayor’s language in response to reporters who disagreed with his remarks wasn’t so professional either.
“Man, them hit dogs keep hollerin!” he repeatedly tweeted following the criticism and at one point, called the media “pathetic.”
I have my ethics professor to thank for scaring me out of posting just anything on social media. Journalists are constantly at risk of being cancelled or disciplined over what they say. Though, compared to something like the Felicia Sonmez-Kobe Bryant fiasco, this was mild.
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