Kenosha News staffer quits over headline
After peaceful rally, article spotlighted violent quote
“Honestly, there are so many moments from my career and life, where I have not said something, that haunt me. At the core of my decision was one person: Jacob Blake. In that moment I could not, one more time, not say anything. So I didn’t. I didn’t stop myself.” Daniel Thompson
Daniel Thompson, who said he was the only full-time Black journalist at The Kenosha News, resigned Saturday after objecting to a headline he called “grossly negligent” about a rally for the family of police shooting victim Jacob Blake.
He joins a wave of journalists of color across the country who have publicly shared stories in recent months about challenges in newsrooms led predominantly by white people. Like Thompson, many protested headlines, prompting public apologies from the Philadephia Inquirer and The New York Times.
At the Saturday event, Jacob Blake Sr. spoke about visiting his son in the hospital, a retired reverend sang songs about unity, and thousands marched behind the Blake family calling for social justice.
The large-font headline that topped the Kenosha News website for several hours quoted an unnamed participant: “Kenosha speaker: ‘If you kill one of us, it’s time for us to kill one of yours.’ ”
Thompson, who had attended the event, said he felt it was dangerous to headline the quote, which didn’t represent the event or the messages from the family and other speakers.
The top editor at the news organization, Bob Heisse, confirmed Thompson’s resignation but did not answer questions about the dispute or why he ultimately changed the headline.
“Nothing was wrong,” Heisse said. “I just felt after a while that I would just change the headline.”
Heisse also declined to answer questions about diversity at the Kenosha News. Many news organizations recently started sharing information about diversity as part of commitments to make newsrooms reflect the communities they serve.
“It’s crucial for news organizations and news leaders to be transparent about their diversity numbers,” said LaSharah Bunting, journalism director for the Knight Foundation. “You can’t solve a problem if you’re not willing to admit the extent of the problem.”
‘I can’t stand for that’
Thompson, who was a digital editor, said working for the Kenosha News had long been his dream job. After being initially rejected for a job there, he carried a Kenosha News editor’s business card in his wallet for five years before he returned and was hired in 2017.
The day of Saturday’s rally for Blake’s family, Thompson was on vacation but attended the event. It was a beautiful day, he said.
“I am a biracial person, and all my life I have been dealing with that,” Thompson said. “To me why the event was so hopeful is because I saw people of different races, colors, religions. I’d been waiting a long time to see what it would look like if everybody came together, and I did.”
Thompson went home, reclined on his couch, and opened Facebook. He saw the Kenosha News headline and was immediately concerned, as were other Facebook users.
“How much damage can a headline like that do in hours in a city where two people were already gunned down because of high tensions?” Thompson said.
It wasn’t the first time Thompson saw a problem with something published by his newspaper, or his former employers. But this time felt different.
“Honestly, there are so many moments from my career and life, where I have not said something, that haunt me,” he said. “At the core of my decision was one person: Jacob Blake. In that moment I could not, one more time, not say anything. So I didn’t. I didn’t stop myself.”
He texted Heisse his concerns. Thompson sent the Journal Sentinel screenshots of the conversation, and Heisse did not dispute them.
“I need to calm down,” Thompson wrote. “But I wanted you to know immediately.”
Heisse replied: “Yes you should calm down. That is a public threat and it is an exact quote. At a rally that was to that point totally on message.”
“Then I quit,” Thompson wrote. “I was there the whole time. I can’t stand for that.”
Heisse told Thompson to send him his resignation letter.
In an interview, Heisse defended the headline, noting the quote was accurate. He said the story was a “sidebar” to another story about the rally, though it ran in the News’ primary featured position online.
‘The courage to leap’
When Thompson quit, he didn’t have a plan.
“When I quit my job to do what I thought was right, I did it with the full chance of free-falling for however long,” he said. “Then you know what happened? My community, that I have given my time to, caught me.”
Thompson set up a GoFundMe page to support himself financially, setting a goal of $5,000 to help him through a couple of months of bills while he explores establishing a new media platform. The page had raised $20,000 as of Tuesday.
“I had faith in my community and they proved me right,” Thompson said. “Sometimes even though it’s scary to do the right thing, you’ll find somebody will catch you. You just have to have the courage to leap.”
Since quitting, Thompson said he has heard from journalists across the country who can relate to the position he was in and are proud of him for speaking up.
Bunting, from the Knight Foundation, said the challenges facing journalists of color aren’t new.
“What you’re seeing is journalists of color feel more empowered to speak up and tell their truth, a truth that’s happened for decades,” she said.
Bunting said journalists of color have long taken on the unsung work of flagging problematic coverage and structural racism within newsrooms.
“For many Black journalists including myself, it is an important part of our work, but news organizations and news leaders have to acknowledge that it is extra work, an extra burden being put on their journalists of color,” Bunting said.
Bunting said it’s crucial for news leaders to examine their own newsrooms and make material changes.
“For many years, you have journalists of color serving on diversity committees, telling people what needs to be done, and those suggestions have largely been ignored,” Bunting said. “With the more public airing of these difficulties, that opens the door for real systemic change.”