Tea Party group tweets support after Republican body-slams a reporter
When a Republican congressional candidate body-slammed a reporter, one Texas Tea Party group celebrated on Twitter.
The Northeast Tarrant Tea Party tweeted "BODY SLAM EVERY JOURNALIST #Gianforte" the day after Montana Republican Greg Gianforte was charged with assaulting Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs. The alleged body-slam broke Jacobs' glasses after he was thrown to the ground. The incident was witnessed by other reporters and caught on tape, which made for some intense audio. Regardless, Gianforte ended up winning the election.
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The pro-body-slam tweet was deleted, but lives on online, of course. The local Fort Worth newspaper the Star-Telegram spoke with the conservative political group, who distanced the group from the tweet, “I guess they thought this was funny, but it was in very poor taste so we removed it immediately.”
Apparently the tweeter has been relieved of social media duty.
After the tweet went up, many reporters posted about the group blocking journalists on Twitter.
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The Northeast Tarrant Tea Party has some intriguing social media guidelines on its website, but nothing on dealing on the backlash from a misguided tweet.
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The group quickly learned you can delete a bad tweet and block people, but the tweet never really goes away.
Topics Politics
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
