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WaPo Reporter Suspended For Tweeting Out 2016 Story About Kobe Bryant’s Rape Case Hours After Fatal Helicopter Crash

Posted on 27 January 2020

Felicia Sonmez, a political reporter for The Washington Post, has been suspended from her post after she posted on Twitter a link to a 2016 article about the Kobe Bryant rape case.

Sonmez posted the link to a Daily Beast story headlined “Kobe Bryant’s Disturbing Rape Case: The DNA Evidence, the Accuser’s Story, and the Half-Confession.” The story is brutal, laying out what happened on the night of June 3, 2003, when Bryant allegedly raped a 19-year-old hotel employee.

The Post reporter tweeted just a few hours after Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna were killed in a helicopter crash in California.

Before deleting her original tweet, Sonmez posted again.

“Well, THAT was eye-opening. To the 10,000 people (literally) who have commented and emailed me with abuse and death threats, please take a moment and read the story–which was written 3+ years ago, and not by me. Any public figure is worth remembering in their totality … even if that public figure is beloved and that totality is unsettling. That folks are responding with rage & threats toward me (someone who didn’t even write the piece but found it well-reported) speaks volumes about the pressure people come under to stay silent in these cases,” she wrote.

In another follow-up post, Sonmez said: “As an addendum: Hard to see what’s accomplished by messages such as these. If your response to a news article is to resort to harassment and intimidation of journalists, you might want to consider that your behavior says more about you than the person you’re targeting.”

 

According to the Daily Mail, Tracy Grant, managing editor of The Washington Post, said: “National political reporter Felicia Sonmez was placed on administrative leave while The Post reviews whether tweets about the death of Kobe Bryant violated The Post newsroom’s social media policy. The tweets displayed poor judgment that undermined the work of her colleagues.”

Twitterers blasted Sonmez.

Others defended the Post reporter.

“Yup that woman learned good that she needs to shut her trap and not bring up messy truths that get in the way of everyone’s hero worship ever again,” wrote on user on Twitter.

“Maybe *you* didn’t need that moment, but for many survivors of sexual violence to see this man lionized because he’s dead without reckoning with the reality of what he did was horrible,” wrote another.

“I hear you but she’s a reporter who simply posted a well-reported story. How are we penalizing her for that?” wrote a third. “She didn’t use crass language. She didn’t disparage him. She said “check out the whole story” of the death of an individual shouldn’t white-wash their past misdeeds.”

The post WaPo Reporter Suspended For Tweeting Out 2016 Story About Kobe Bryant’s Rape Case Hours After Fatal Helicopter Crash appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.